Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Machado, Ana Manuel Dantas
• Sommer, Morten O A
• Chakravortty, Dipshikha

Titel

Human intestinal cells modulate conjugational transfer of multidrug resistance plasmids between clinical Escherichia coli isolates

Ist Teil von

• PloS one, 2014-06, Vol.9 (6), p.e100739-e100739

Ort / Verlag

United States: Public Library of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Bacterial conjugation in the human gut microbiota is believed to play a major role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence plasmids. However, the modulation of bacterial conjugation by the human host remains poorly understood and there is a need for controlled systems to study this process. We established an in vitro co-culture system to study the interaction between human intestinal cells and bacteria. We show that the conjugation efficiency of a plasmid encoding an extended spectrum beta-lactamase is reduced when clinical isolates of Escherichia coli are co-cultured with human intestinal cells. We show that filtered media from co-cultures contain a factor that reduces conjugation efficiency. Protease treatment of the filtered media eliminates this inhibition of conjugation. This data suggests that a peptide or protein based factor is secreted on the apical side of the intestinal cells exposed to bacteria leading to a two-fold reduction in conjugation efficiency. These results show that human gut epithelial cells can modulate bacterial conjugation and may have relevance to gene exchange in the gut.