[Dynamics of Shigella interaction with the epithelium in the infection process].

The study of the adhesion of Shigella flexneri to intestinal mucosal explants from human postabortion fetuses, used as an experimental model, has revealed that the process of interaction between the infective agent and the epithelium develops in accordance with Langmuir's equation of the adsorption isotherm. The specific biological feature of the adhesive interaction between bacteria and the mucous membrane is the fact that the effective adhesion of microbes is possible only in case of their high concentration on the surface of the mucous membrane. In case of their low concentration in the parietal layer no microbial adhesion is observed, whereas epithelial villi infected with shigellae and fixed to the mucous membrane of the explant produce a high parietal concentration of the infective agents, which leads to the increase of adhesion by more than two orders.