Molecular characterization of extraintestinal and diarrheagenic blood isolates.

Pathogenic strains can be classified into two major groups, based on the presence of specific virulence factors: extraintestinal pathogenic (ExPEC) and diarrheagenic (DEC). Several case reports describe that DEC can cause bloodstream infections in some rare cases. This mainly concerns a few specific sequence types that express virulence factors from both ExPEC and DEC.