Community context influences the conjugation efficiency of .

In urinary tract infections (UTIs), different bacteria can live in a polymicrobial community consisting of different species. It is unknown how community members affect the conjugation efficiency of uropathogenic . We investigated the influence of individual species often coisolated from urinary infections (UTI) on the conjugation efficiency of isolates in artificial urine medium. Pairwise conjugation rate experiments were conducted between a donor strain containing the pOXA-48 plasmid and six uropathogenic isolates, in the presence and absence of five different species commonly coisolated in polymicrobial UTIs to elucidate their effect on the conjugation efficiency of . We found that the basal conjugation rates of pOXA-48, in the absence of other species, are dependent on the bacterial host genetic background. Additionally, we found that bacterial interactions have an overall positive effect on the conjugation rate of pOXA-48. Particularly, Gram-positive enterococcal species were found to enhance the conjugation rates towards uropathogenic isolates. We hypothesize that the nature of the coculture and physical interactions are important for these increased conjugation rates in an artificial urine medium environment.