Yamamoto Denise, Hernandes Rodrigo T, Liberatore Ana Maria A, Abe Cecilia M, Souza Rodrigo B de, Romão Fabiano T, Sperandio Vanessa, Koh Ivan H, Gomes Tânia A T
Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia e Parasitologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista de Medicina (UNIFESP-EPM), São Paulo, Brazil.
Departamento de Microbiologia e Imunologia, Instituto de Biociência, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP), Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2017 Feb 8;12(2):e0171385. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171385. eCollection 2017.
Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death of children up to five years old in the developing countries. Among the etiological diarrheal agents are atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (aEPEC), one of the diarrheagenic E. coli pathotypes that affects children and adults, even in developed countries. Currently, genotypic and biochemical approaches have helped to demonstrate that some strains classified as aEPEC are actually E. albertii, a recently recognized human enteropathogen. Studies on particular strains are necessary to explore their virulence potential in order to further understand the underlying mechanisms of E. albertii infections. Here we demonstrated for the first time that infection of fragments of rat intestinal mucosa is a useful tool to study the initial steps of E. albertii colonization. We also observed that an E. albertii strain can translocate from the intestinal lumen to Mesenteric Lymph Nodes and liver in a rat model. Based on our finding of bacterial translocation, we investigated how E. albertii might cross the intestinal epithelium by performing infections of M-like cells in vitro to identify the potential in vivo translocation route. Altogether, our approaches allowed us to draft a general E. albertii infection route from the colonization till the bacterial spreading in vivo.
腹泻是发展中国家五岁以下儿童的第二大死因。在引起腹泻的病原体中，非典型肠致病性大肠杆菌（aEPEC）是一种致泻性大肠杆菌致病型，即使在发达国家也会影响儿童和成人。目前，基因分型和生化方法已有助于证明，一些被归类为aEPEC的菌株实际上是阿尔伯特埃希氏菌，这是一种最近才被认识的人类肠道病原体。对特定菌株进行研究以探索其毒力潜力，以便进一步了解阿尔伯特埃希氏菌感染的潜在机制是很有必要的。在这里，我们首次证明感染大鼠肠黏膜片段是研究阿尔伯特埃希氏菌定植初始步骤的有用工具。我们还观察到，在大鼠模型中，一株阿尔伯特埃希氏菌菌株可从肠腔转移至肠系膜淋巴结和肝脏。基于我们对细菌转移的发现，我们通过体外感染M样细胞来研究阿尔伯特埃希氏菌如何穿过肠上皮，以确定其在体内的潜在转移途径。总之，我们的方法使我们能够勾勒出阿尔伯特埃希氏菌从定植到体内细菌传播的一般感染途径。
