Enteroinvasive Escherichia coli a cause of bacteremia in patients with AIDS

A strain of enteroinvasive Escherichia coli was isolated from the blood of a patient with advanced human immunodeficiency virus disease on repeated occasions, associated with severe diarrheal illness. The isolate was killed in vitro by control sera but not by sera collected from the patient before or after his bacterial illnesses. Although Escherichia coli is the predominant aerobic organism of normal human fecal flora, there exist several pathogenic types (12). These include enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC) strains that have the ability to attach to, invade, multiply within, and destroy colonic epithelial cells (12). The clinical manifestations of EIEC infections are similar to those caused by Shigella species, which are closely related to EIEC on a genetic level. In addition, the invasive poten-tial of EIEC is associated with a plasmid which has signifi-cant sequence homology with the invasion plasmid of Shi-gella sp. (9, 16). Shigellemia has been described previously most commonly for malnourished infants, elderly persons