Context-Dependent Requirements for FimH and Other Canonical Virulence Factors in Gut Colonization by Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) acts as a commensal within the mammalian gut but can induce pathology upon dissemination to other host environments such as the urinary tract and bloodstream. ExPEC genomes are likely shaped by evolutionary forces encountered within the gut, where the bacteria spend much of their time, provoking the question of how their extraintestinal virulence traits arose. The principle of coincidental evolution, in which a gene that evolved in one niche happens to be advantageous in another, has been used to argue that ExPEC virulence factors originated in response to selective pressures within the gut ecosystem. As a test of this hypothesis, the fitness of ExPEC mutants lacking canonical virulence factors was assessed within the intact murine

SUBMITTER: Russell CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5820936 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature