Adhesion, biofilm and genotypic characteristics of antimicrobial resistant Escherichia coli isolates

Aggregative adherence to human epithelial cells, most to renal proximal tubular (HK-2) cells, and biofilm formation was identified among antimicrobial resistant Escherichia coli strains mainly iso-lated from bacteremia. The importance of these virulence properties contributing to host colonization and infection associated with multiresistant E. coli should not be neglected. Key words: adherence, biofilm, extraintestinal Escherichia coli, antimicrobial resistance, virulence genes. Escherichia coli is responsible for a wide variety of community and hospital acquired extraintestinal infections, showing increasing antimicrobial resistance rates. Extra-intestinal pathogenic E. coli can inhabit the intestinal tract as part of the microflora and infect extraintestinal sites such as the urinary tract, the bloodstream, and the central ner-vous system (Kaper et al., 2004). Ability to adhere to differ-ent surfaces, and formed biofilms have been highlighted a