ENTEROPATHOGENICITY OF PLESIOMONAS SHIGELLOIDES

Abstract

Plesiomonas Shigelloides has been implicated as an aetiological agent in sporadic cases and outbreaks of diarrhoea, and in food poisoning, in various parts of the world. (Schmid, Velaudapillai and Niles, 1954; Osada and Shibata, 1956; Vandepitte et al., 1957; Ueda, Yamasaki and Hori, 1963; Aldova, Rakovsky and Chovanova, 1966; Geizer, Kopecky and Aldova, 1966; Hori et al., 1966; Cooper and Brown, 1968; Pauŝova and Fukalova, 1968; von Graevenitz and Mensch, 1968; Winton, 1968; Sakazaki et al., 1971; Chatterjee and Neogy, 1972; Sanyal et al., 1972a and b; Zajc-Satler, Dragas and Kumelj, 1972; Bhat, Shantha Kumari and Rajan, 1974; Vandepitte, Makulu and Gatti, 1974; Sanyal, Singh and Sen, 1975; Jandl and Linke, 1976; Tsukamoto et al., 1978). P. shigelloides was isolated in pure culture from stools of patients with diarrhoea of otherwise unexplained origin, and more often from patients than from symptomless persons. Experimental evidence has not, however, been reported in support of its enteropathogenicity, except our preliminary communication on the activity of a few strains in the rabbit ileal-loop model (Saraswathi, Sharma and Sanyal, 1978). The present investigation was undertaken to examine its enterotoxicity and invasiveness.