发布: 2019年03月20日第9卷第6期 DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3196 浏览次数: 6428
评审: Elizabeth LibbyTimo A LehtiMichael Tscherner
Abstract
Biofilm formation is a well-known bacterial strategy that protects cells from hostile environments. During infection, bacteria found in a biofilm community are less sensitive to antibiotics and to the immune response, often allowing them to colonize and persist in the host niche. Not surprisingly, biofilm formation on medical devices, such as urinary catheters, is a major problem in hospital settings. To be able to eliminate such biofilms, it is important to understand the key bacterial factors that contribute to their formation. A common practice in the lab setting is to study biofilms grown in laboratory media. However, these media do not fully reflect the host environment conditions, potentially masking relevant biological determinants. This is the case during urinary catheterization, where a key element for Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus colonization and biofilm formation is the release of fibrinogen (Fg) into the bladder and its deposition on the urinary catheter. To recapitulate bladder conditions during catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), we have developed a fibrinogen-coated catheter and 96-well plate biofilm assay in urine. Notably, enterococcal biofilm factors identified in these in vitro assays proved to be important for biofilm formation in vivo in a mouse model of CAUTI. Thus, the method described herein can be used to uncover biofilm-promoting factors that are uniquely relevant in the host environment, and that can be exploited to develop new antibacterial therapies.
Keywords: BiofilmBackground
Enterococcus faecalis is a leading cause of nosocomial infections, most notably infective endocarditis (IE) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) (Arias et al., 2012; Chirouze et al., 2013; Flores-Mireles et al., 2015). Since these diseases are mainly biofilm-associated, a better understanding of how E. faecalis forms biofilms within the host can enable us to develop novel antibacterial therapies (Dunny et al., 2014).
The most common method to evaluate bacterial biofilm formation is the microplate biofilm assay, where bacteria are typically grown in microplate wells filled with laboratory media prior to analysis (Azeredo et al., 2017). However, there is increasing evidence that assays performed in laboratory growth media do not fully recapitulate conditions found within the host, and potentially overlook important bacterial factors required during infection (Nallapareddy and Murray, 2008; Guiton et al., 2013; Flores-Mireles et al., 2014; Colomer-Winter et al., 2017 and 2018; Xu et al., 2017). This is exemplified by studies investigating how E. faecalis forms biofilms on urinary catheters, a crucial step during persistent CAUTI (Nielsen et al., 2012; Guiton et al., 2013; Flores-Mireles et al., 2014, 2016a and 2016b). Early studies using animal models showed that E. faecalis forms robust biofilms on indwelling urinary catheters, and it was hypothesized that bacterial attachment occurred, at least in part, via Ebp, the endocarditis-and-biofilm-associated pilus (Nielsen et al., 2012). This hypothesis was substantiated by the finding that ebp deletion mutants were deficient in biofilm formation in vitro (in tryptic soy broth supplemented with 0.25% glucose [TSBG]) and in vivo, and were highly attenuated in animal models (Singh et al., 2007; Nallapareddy et al., 2011; Nielsen et al., 2012; Guiton et al., 2013; Sillanpaa et al., 2013; Flores-Mireles et al., 2014). However, the compelling body of work showing that Ebp-mediated biofilm formation is important during CAUTI contrasted with the observation that E. faecalis did not form biofilms in urine ex vivo (Flores-Mireles et al., 2014). This posed a significant paradox since urine is the environment that bacteria encounter during infection in the urinary tract. The paradox was resolved by the key finding that Ebp binds to fibrinogen (Nallapareddy et al., 2011) and that the host releases fibrinogen into the bladder as a result of catheter-associated inflammation (Flores-Mireles et al., 2014). Indeed, addition of fibrinogen to urine enhanced enterococcal biofilm formation ex vivo and enabled the discovery that E. faecalis cells attach to urinary catheters primarily via Ebp-fibrinogen interactions (Flores-Mireles et al., 2014). While this method successfully d the results found in vivo, it ultimately confirmed the critical role of fibrinogen to enterococcal pathogenesis and led to the development of a vaccine therapy (Flores-Mireles et al., 2014, 2016a and 2016b). Similarly, the assay was later used to probe the importance of recapitulatemanganese uptake to enterococcal biofilm formation in urine (Colomer-Winter et al., 2018).
The method described (Figure 1) herein highlights the importance of developing assays that closely mimic the host environment to be able to study bacterial processes that are critical during infection. This concept is not restricted to the urinary tract or to E. faecalis, as it could be generally applied to studies of bacterial pathophysiology within the vertebrate host, like for example the oral cavity or the cardiovascular system.
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文章信息
版权信息
© 2019 The Authors; exclusive licensee Bio-protocol LLC.
如何引用
Colomer-Winter, C., Lemos, J. A. and Flores-Mireles, A. L. (2019). Biofilm Assays on Fibrinogen-coated Silicone Catheters and 96-well Polystyrene Plates. Bio-protocol 9(6): e3196. DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3196.
分类
微生物学 > 微生物生物膜 > 生物膜培养
生物化学 > 蛋白质 > 免疫检测
分子生物学 > 蛋白质 > 蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用
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