title: Relationship between adhesion of Escherichia coli to uro-epithelial cells and the pathogenesis of urinary infection: problems in methodology and analysis.
abstract: Escherichia coli strains isolated from patients with urinary infections were tested for their ability to adhere to human uro-epithelial cells. In any single experiment, the numbers of bacteria adhering to individual uro-epithelial cells showed great variations; some cells had hundreds of bacteria adhering to them whereas other cells had few or none. This non-Normal distribution of bacterial attachment must be taken into account when carrying out statistical analyses of the results. The wide discrepancies reported in the literature regarding bacterial adhesion to uro-epithelial cells must, in part, be related to the type of statistical analysis used. In many cases, a Normal rather than a non-Normal distribution has been assumed. We found that even when all variables were kept constant, the experiment was still not reproducible. Therefore the technique shows a high degree of both inter- and intra-experimental error. Adhesion depended on such factors as the type of fimbriae produced by the bacteria, differing viability of uro-epithelial cells and varying pH of the medium used for a particular experiment. It is concluded that the results of in-vitro experiments demonstrating adhesion of E. coli to uro-epithelial cells are difficult to relate to bacterial adhesion in vivo but better results could be obtained if more attention were paid to standardisation of methods and their analysis.
authors.forename: I J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Rosenstein
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grady
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Hamilton-Miller
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Brumfitt
mesh_terms: D000268:Adhesiveness; D000328:Adult; D002470:Cell Survival; D003470:Culture Media; D004847:Epithelial Cells; D004848:Epithelium / Q000382:microbiology; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D005260:Female; D010861:Fimbriae, Bacterial / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008597:Menstrual Cycle; D014551:Urinary Tract / Q000166:cytology / Q000382:microbiology*; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D014556:Urine / Q000166:cytology
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media