Detection of genes for heat-stable enterotoxin I in Escherichia coli strains isolated in Brazil.

Heat-stable enterotoxin I (STI) can be assayed in intestinal loops of pigs and rabbits and in the gut of infant mice. To produce a simpler and more discriminating assay procedure, we used three gene probes corresponding to three forms of STI called STIa, STIb, and STIc. We tested 159 Brazilian isolates, of which 40 were positive in the infant mouse assay. The STIb and STIc probes are similar (93% DNA homology) and are both different from the STIa probe (70% DNA homology). Of 33 strains that were still active for STI 3 years after their isolation, 25 reacted with both the STIb and STIc probes, 4 reacted with the STIc probe only, and 7 reacted strongly with the STIa probe and weakly or not at all with the other probes. Two strains reacted with all three probes. Further analysis showed that each of these two strains contains a small plasmid that reacts with the STIa probe and a large plasmid that reacts with the STIc probe in one strain and weakly with both the STIa and STIc probes in the other strain. It was also shown that the STIa probe reacts with the cloning vehicle pACYC184 used for the cloning of STIc. We conclude that the gene probes used can identify most STI-producing strains and that in cases of positive responses with several probes careful scrutiny is necessary for analysis.