Role of Campylobacter jejuni flagella as colonization factors for three-day-old chicks: analysis with flagellar mutants.
Campylobacter jejuni, an important cause of human gastrointestinal infection, is a major food-borne pathogen in the United States and worldwide. Since poultry becomes colonized and/or contaminated during the early stages of production and is a major food-borne source for this organism, we studied the role of C. jejuni flagella on the ability of the bacterium to colonize the chicken gastrointestinal tract. Three-day-old chicks were orally challenged with a motile wild-type strain of C. jejuni IN9 or with flagellar mutants created from IN9 by disrupting the flagellin genes with a kanamycin resistance cassette by using shuttle mutagenesis (A. Labigne-Roussel, P. Courcoux, and L. Tompkins, J. Bacteriol. 170:1704-1708, 1988). One mutant, IN9-N3, lacked flagella and was nonmotile. The other, IN9-N7, produced a truncated flagellum and was partially motile. Three-day-old chicks were orally challenged with different doses of the wild-type strain and the two mutants. At challenge doses ranging from 3.0 x 10(4) to 6.6 x 10(8) CFU per chick, only the fully motile, wild-type strain colonized the chick ceca. Our results show that intact and motile flagella are important colonization factors for C. jejuni in chicks.
Department of Pathology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia 19104-4283.
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Nachamkin
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Yang
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D000818:Animals; D016123:Campylobacter jejuni / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D002645:Chickens / Q000382:microbiology; D004064:Digestive System / Q000382:microbiology; D005407:Flagella / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005408:Flagellin / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional
D005408:Flagellin