Granulocytes impose a tight bottleneck upon the gut luminal pathogen population during Salmonella typhimurium colitis.

ABSTRACT: Topological, chemical and immunological barriers are thought to limit infection by enteropathogenic bacteria. However, in many cases these barriers and their consequences for the infection process remain incompletely understood. Here, we employed a mouse model for Salmonella colitis and a mixed inoculum approach to identify barriers limiting the gut luminal pathogen population. Mice were infected via the oral route with wild type S. Typhimurium (S. Tm) and/or mixtures of phenotypically identical but differentially tagged S. Tm strains ("WITS", wild-type isogenic tagged strains), which can be individually tracked by quantitative real-time PCR. WITS dilution experiments identified a substantial loss in tag/genetic diversity within the gut luminal S. Tm population by days 2-4 post infection.

SUBMITTER: Maier L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4270771 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature