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Record W4410814946 · doi:10.1016/j.idcr.2025.e02274

Whole-genome sequencing confirms Shigella flexneri infection in a child with shock and suspected multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children: A case report

2025· article· en· W4410814946 on OpenAlex
Sheridan J.C. Baker, Laura K. Erdman, Donald Brody Duncan, Tania Cellucci, Candy Rutherford, Marek Smieja, Cheryl Main, Jeffrey M. Pernica, Andrew G. McArthur

Why this work is in the frame

A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.

affAt least one author lists a Canadian institution in the pinned OpenAlex snapshot.
fundA Canadian funder is recorded on the work.

Bibliographic record

VenueIDCases · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicEscherichia coli research studies
Canadian institutionsHamilton Health SciencesHamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine ProgramMcMaster Children's HospitalMcMaster University
FundersMitacs
KeywordsShigella flexneriMedicineShigellaWhole genome sequencingShock (circulatory)GenomeMicrobiologyVirologyGeneticsGeneInternal medicineEscherichia coliBiology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Background Differentiating severe systemic inflammatory syndromes from sepsis can be challenging. The diagnostic process may be further complicated by concurrent infection and hyperinflammation, with important management implications. We report a child with suspected multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, who was unexpectedly diagnosed with Shigella gastroenteritis. Case presentation A previously healthy 6-year-old boy acutely presented with fever, vomiting, diarrhea, fluid-refractory shock, cardiac dysfunction, biochemical inflammation, and coagulopathy. He fulfilled diagnostic criteria for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, including SARS-CoV-2 exposure 8 weeks prior. He received both antibiotics and pulsed intravenous methylprednisolone, with rapid improvement. Stool molecular testing using a lab-developed multiplex qPCR assay revealed Shigella flexneri infection, confirmed by culture, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, and whole-genome sequencing. Serologic testing confirmed prior infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The child fully recovered. Immunological investigations were normal. The case was investigated by the Public Health Department, but the source of Shigella infection was not identified. Conclusions This case underscores the importance of systematic microbiological workup in suspected systemic inflammatory syndromes, to identify infections that are treatable and of public health relevance. Given the rarity of Shigella septic shock in immunocompetent individuals, this case raises the possibility that recent SARS-CoV-2 infection led to immune dysregulation and exaggerated inflammatory responses to Shigella . It also demonstrates the utility of molecular testing for rapid diagnosis and confirmation of gastrointestinal infection.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.072
Threshold uncertainty score0.746

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0000.000
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.008
GPT teacher head0.254
Teacher spread0.246 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it