Phenotypic Expression of Type 1 Klebsiella pneumoniae Fimbriae in Escherichia coli HB101

Abstract

Four selected isolates of K. pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae were tested for adhesion and the results revealed that isolates MK20, MK1, MK2, MK6 displayed adhesive capability with means (76.25 ± 6.0),(75.88 ± 5.13), (69.83 ± 8.43), (27.4±4.65) bacteria/ epithelial cell, respectively. Agarose gel electrophoresis was performed to detect plasmid profile for the four selected isolates. Results showed that all isolates exhibited two bands of small plasmid DNA with molecular size ranged from less than 4kb for the smaller one to more than 12kb for the larger one as compared with DNA molecular size marker )lambda phage restricted with EcoRІ & Hind). Besides two bands of large plasmid DNA were obtained from the isolates MK20, MK1, MK6, but the isolate MK2 didn’t show any band of large plasmid DNA. Transformation of plasmid DNA was performed using standard genetically modified E. coli HB101 strain as the recipient for plasmids of the selected isolates, while E. coli HB101with pBR322 plasmid was used as a positive control. In respect to the adhesion test, it was observed that the transformants, designated as (T1, T2, T6, T20), showed adherence capability of: (54.37±5.38), (48.33±4.475), (43.46±0.625), (33.0±6.71) for the transformants T2, T20, T1, T6, respectively. However, these transformants showed no significant differences in the adherence capability, however, the mean of adhesion capabilities of the transformants were less than that of the wild type isolates.