Abstract

Typhoid fever is a systemic bacterial disease caused by Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi, manifested by prolonged fever accompanied by intestinal disorders, which in some cases may progress to intestinal perforation, and can also cause pneumonia and cholestatic hepatitis. The virulence of Salmonella Typhi is highly complex, involving the expression of numerous genes, which encode toxins, adhesins, invasions or other virulence factors. In the present work, the bacterial isolate from three clinical cases of typhoid fever complications (intestinal perforation, pneumonia and cholestatic hepatitis) were tested for six virulence genes (invA, viAB, prt, tcf, tyv and H-d). The samples showed the same results in the PCR identifying the agent as Salmonella Typhi, without the presence of other non-Typhi Salmonella, being observed the existence of high genetic similarity between the samples of the analyzed clinical cases.

Keywords: Salmonella Typhi; Virulence genes; Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)