Laboratory adapted Escherichia coli K-12 becomes a pathogen of Caenorhabditis elegans upon restoration of O antigen biosynthesis

Browning, D.F.; Wells, T.J.; Franca, F.L.; Morris, F.C.; Sevastyanovich, Y.R.; Bryant, J.A.; Johnson, M.D.; Lund, P.A.; Cunningham, A.F.; Hobman, Jon L.; May, R.C.; Webber, M.A.; Henderson, I.R.

Abstract

Escherichia coli has been the leading model organism for many decades. It is a fundamental player in modern biology, facilitating the molecular biology revolution of the last century. The acceptance of E. coli as model organism is predicated primarily on the study of one E. coli lineage; E. coli K-12. However, the antecedents of today's laboratory strains have undergone extensive mutagenesis to create genetically tractable offspring but which resulted in loss of several genetic traits such as O antigen expression. Here we have repaired the wbbL locus, restoring the ability of E. coli K-12 strain MG1655 to express the O antigen. We demonstrate that O antigen production results in drastic alterations of many phenotypes and the density of the O antigen is critical for the observed phenotypes. Importantly, O antigen production enables laboratory strains of E. coli to enter the gut of the Caenorhabditis elegans worm and to kill C. elegans at rates similar to pathogenic bacterial species. We demonstrate C. elegans killing is a feature of other commensal E. coli. We show killing is associated with bacterial resistance to mechanical shear and persistence in the C. elegans gut. These results suggest C. elegans is not an effective model of human-pathogenic E. coli infectious disease.

Citation

Browning, D., Wells, T., Franca, F., Morris, F., Sevastyanovich, Y., Bryant, J., Johnson, M., Lund, P., Cunningham, A., Hobman, J. L., May, R., Webber, M., & Henderson, I. (2013). Laboratory adapted Escherichia coli K-12 becomes a pathogen of Caenorhabditis elegans upon restoration of O antigen biosynthesis. Molecular Microbiology, 87(5), https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.12144

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Feb 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 11, 2016
• Journal: Molecular Microbiology
• Print ISSN: 0950-382X
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2958
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 87
• Issue: 5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.12144
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1002561
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mmi.12144/abstract
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Browning, D. F., Wells, T. J., França, F. L. S., Morris, F. C., Sevastsyanovich, Y. R., Bryant, J. A., Johnson, M. D., Lund, P. A., Cunningham, A. F., Hobman, J. L., May, R. C., Webber, M. A. and Henderson, I. R. (2013), Laboratory adapted Escherichia coli K-12 becomes a pathogen of Caenorhabditis elegans upon restoration of O antigen biosynthesis. Molecular Microbiology, 87: 939–950, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mmi.12144. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.