1887

Abstract

Summary.

For many organisms, mucosal association is an important virulence determinant. Although studied in detail for other intestinal pathogens, this aspect of pathogenicity has not been studied for We compared the ability of an avirulent non-toxigenic strain (M-1), a highly virulent toxigenic strain (B-1), and a poorly virulent toxigenic strain (BAT) of to adhere to different regions of the gastrointestinal tract of hamsters pre-treated with clindamycin. Strain B-1 associated with the gut mucosa significantly better than strain M-1 (p <0·001) for all sites other than the caecum, and achieved significantly higher levels in the caecal contents (p<0·001). The same was true when strain B-1 was compared with strain BAT except that there was no significant difference for the large bowel mucosa. To assess the possible role of toxin in promoting mucosal association, e.g., by compromising host defences or exposing masked adherence sites, strain M-1 was given to animals after intra-caecal administration of crude toxin preparations from strain B-1, which were heat-inactivated in control experiments. The addition of this toxin increased significantly the mucosal association of M-1 for the small bowel only, whereas the inactivated toxin had no significant effect. These results imply that there may be intrinsic differences between strains in their ability to colonise and associate with the gut mucosa, which may partly depend on their ability to produce toxin. These differences do not correlate with cell-surface hydrophobicity or the presence of plasmids, flagella or fimbriae.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-25-3-191
1988-03-01
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jmm/25/3/medmicro-25-3-191.html?itemId=/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-25-3-191&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Bender B S. 1986; Is Clostridium difficile endemic in chronic-care facilities ?. Lancet 2:11–13
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Birnboim H C, Doly J. 1979; A rapid alkaline extraction procedure for screening recombinantplasmid DNA.. Nucleic Acid Research 7:1513–1523
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Boedeker E C. 1982; Enterocyte adherence of Escherichia coli: its relation to diarrheal disease.. Gastroenterology 83:489–492
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Borriello S P. (ed) 1984; Antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and colitis : the role of Clostridium difficile in gastro-intestinal disorders. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; The Hague:
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Borriello S P, Barclay F E. 1984; Colonization resistance to Clostridium difficile infection.. Microecology and Therapy 14:75–87
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Borriello S P, Barclay F E. 1985; Protection of hamsters against Clostridium difficile ileocaecitis by prior colonisation with non-pathogenic strains.. Journal of Medical Microbiology 19:339–350
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Borriello S P, Barclay F E. 1986; An in-vitro model of colonisation resistance to Clostridium difficile infection.. Journal of Medical Microbiology 21:299–309
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Borriello S P. 1985; Host and microbial determinants of the spectrum of Clostridium difficile mediated gastrointestinal disorders.. Microecology and Therapy 15:231–236
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Borriello S P. 1987; Clostridium difficile—a spectrum of virulence and analysis of putative virulence determinants in the hamster model of antibiotic-associated colitis.. Journal of Medical Microbiology 24:53–64
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Burdon D W. 1984; Spectrum of disease.. Borriello S P. (ed) Antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and colitis : the role of Clostridium difficile in gastrointestinal disorders Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; The Hague:9
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Cheney C P, Schad P A, Formal S B, Boedeker E C. 1980; Species specificity of in-vitro Escherichia coli adherence to host intestinal cell membranes and its correlation with in-vivo colonization and infectivity.. Infection and Immunity 28:1019–1027
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Fontaine E A R, Borriello S P, Taylor-Robinson D, Davies H A. 1984; Characteristics of a gram-negative anaerobe isolated from men with non-gonococcal urethritis.. Journal of Medical Microbiology 17:129–140
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Hartley C L, Neumann C S, Richmond M H. 1979; Adhesion of commensal bacteria to the large intestine wall in humans.. Infection and Immunity 23:128–132
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Hayter P M, Dale J W. 1984; Detection of plasmids in clinical isolates of Clostridium difficile . Microbios Letters 27:151–156
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Henrichsen J, Blom J. 1975; Correlation between twitching motility and possession of polar fimbriae in Acinetobacter calcoaceticus . Ada Pathologica et Microbiologica Scandinavica 83: Section B 103–115
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Hill I D, Peto R. 1971; Probabilities derived from finite populations.. Applied Statistics 20:99–105
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Hinton M, Hampson D J, Hampson E, Linton A H. 1985; A comparison of the ecology of Escherichia coli in the intestine of healthy unweaned pigs and pigs after weaning.. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 58:471–478
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Johnson A P, Davies H A. 1984; Demonstration by electron microscopy of pili on Gardnerella vaginalis . British Journal of Venereal Diseases 60:396–397
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Ketley J M, Mitchell T J, Candy D C A, Burdon D W, Stephen J. 1987; The effects of Clostridium difficile crude toxins and toxin A on ileal and colonic loops in immune and non-immune rabbits.. Journal of Medical Microbiology 24:41–52
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Krivan H C, Clark G F, Smith D F, Wilkins T D. 1986; Cell surface binding site for Clostridium difficile enterotoxin: evidence for a glycoconjugate containing the sequence Galαl-3Galβl-4GlcNAc.. Infection and Immunity 53:573–581
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Lancet 1977; Bacterial adhesiveness and the gut.. Lancet 1:1293–1294
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Larson H E, Barclay F E, Honour P, Hill I D. 1982; Epidemiology of Clostridium difficile in infants.. Journal of Infectious Diseases 146:727–733
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Libby J M, Donta S T, Wilkins T D. 1983; Clostridium difficile toxin A in infants.. Journal of Infectious Diseases 148:606
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Lindahl M, Faris A, Wadström T, Hjertén S. 1981; A new test based on ‘salting out’ to measure relative surface hydrophobicity of bacterial cells.. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 677:471–476
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Ljungh A, Wadström T. 1982; Salt aggregation test for measuring cell surface hydrophobicity of urinary Escherichia coli . European Journal of Clinical Microbiology 1:388–393
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Lyerly D M, Saum K E, MacDonald D K, Wilkins T D. 1985; Effects of Clostridium difficile toxins given intragastrically to animals.. Infection and Immunity 47:349–352
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Mitchell T J, Ketley J M, Burdon D W, Candy D C A, Stephen J. 1987; Biological mode of action of Clostridium difficile toxin A : a novel enterotoxin.. Journal of Medical Microbiology. 23:211–219
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Mitchell T J. 1986; Effect of toxin A and toxin B of Clostridium difficile on rabbit ileum and colon.. Gut 27:78–85
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Newell D G, McBride H, Dolby J M. 1985; Investigations on the role of flagella in the colonization of infant mice with Campylobacter jejuni and attachment of Campylobacter jejuni to human epithelial cell lines.. Journal of Hygiene 95:217–227
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Pai C H, Mors V, Toma S. 1978; Prevalence of enterotoxigenicity in human and nonhuman isolates of Yersinia enterocolitica . Infection and Immunity 22:334–338
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Peach S L, Borriello S P, Gaya H, Barclay F E, Welch A R. 1986; Asymptomatic carriage of Clostridium difficile in patients with cystic fibrosis.. Journal of Clinical Pathology 39:1013–1018
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Pierce N F, Kaper J B, Mekalanos J J, Cray W C. 1985; Role of cholera toxin in enteric colonization by Vibrio cholerae O1 in rabbits.. Infection and Immunity 50:813–816
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-25-3-191
Loading
/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-25-3-191
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error