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Plesiomonas (PI.) shigelloides (shig.), a gram-negative facultative anaerobically growing and oxidase-positive rod-shaped bacterium is an important pathogen causing enteritis in regions of warmer climate: Possibly, it is also responsible for foodborne infections. Previous investigations concerning virulence factors and pathogenic mechanisms produced partly divergent results. As regard virulence-associated characteristics of PI. shig, strains only a few facts are known. In pattern investigations the cytotoxicity in various cell cultures, the presence of plasmids as well as the expression of properties which could possibly represent virulence markers were examined using 11 strains of different origins. The main marker which was regularly to be found was the uptake of congo red, whereas autoagglutination, haemagglutination and serum resistance did not appear at all or occured just sporadically, having no connection with the cytotoxicity which become apparent in Bat- and chickenembryofibroblast-cultures but not in Vero-cell-cultures. Plasmid-DNA was found merely in two strains.