RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Genetically related Escherichia colistrains associated with Crohn's disease JF Gut JO Gut FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Society of Gastroenterology SP 320 OP 325 DO 10.1136/gut.48.3.320 VO 48 IS 3 A1 E Masseret A1 J Boudeau A1 J F Colombel A1 C Neut A1 P Desreumaux A1 B Joly A1 A Cortot A1 A Darfeuille-Michaud YR 2001 UL http://gut.bmj.com/content/48/3/320.abstract AB Escherichia colistrains isolated from patients with Crohn's disease (CD) with chronic ileal lesions (n=14), early endoscopic recurrent lesions (n=20), without endoscopic recurrence (n=7), and controls (n=21) were compared by ribotyping. The dendrogram generated by 50 ribotype profile analysis revealed a large cluster of genetically linked E coli strains isolated significantly more frequently from patients with chronic and recurrent CD (24/33 patients) than from controls (9/21) (p<0.05). Most patients operated on for chronic ileal lesions (78.5%) harboured E coli strains belonging to cluster A (p<0.002v controls). The prevalence of patients with early recurrent lesions harbouring E colistrains belonging to this cluster was high but not significant, although 16 strains isolated from eight patients presented the same ribotype profile. In this cluster, 21 of 26 strains isolated from patients with active CD demonstrated adherent ability to differentiated Caco-2 cells, indicating that most of the genetically related strains share a common virulence trait. Comparison of E coli strains recovered from ulcerated and healthy mucosa of patients operated on for CD demonstrated in each patient that a single strain colonised the intestinal mucosa. Our results suggest that although a single E coli isolate was not found in Crohn's ileal mucosa, some genotypes were more likely than others to be associated with chronic or early recurrent ileal lesions.CDCrohn's diseaserRNAribosomal ribonucleic acidRT patternribotype patternCILchronic ileal lesionERearly recurrent ileal lesionCDHCD patient without recurrent lesionICileal biopsy from controlSCstool specimen from control