title: Erwinia chrysanthemi strains cause death of human gastrointestinal cells in culture and express an intimin-like protein.
abstract: The bacterium Erwinia chrysanthemi is a model plant pathogen, responsible for causing cell death in plant tissue. Cell-wall depolymerizing enzymes and avirulence proteins essential for parasitism by this bacterium utilize dedicated type II and type III secretion systems, respectively. Although E. chrysanthemi is not recognized as a mammalian pathogen, we have observed that the bacterium can adhere to, cause an oxidative stress response in and kill cultured human adenocarcinoma cells. These bacteria express a surface protein that bears immunological identity to intimin, a protein required for full virulence of enterohemorrhagic and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli. A type III secretion mutant of E. chrysanthemi was observed to have a significantly lower capability of causing death than the wild-type strain in parallel cultures of human colon adenocarcinoma cells. These observations suggest that E. chrysanthemi has the potential to parasitize mammalian hosts as well as plants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock 79409, USA.
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Duarté
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grimson
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Barabote
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Strauss
authors.forename: L S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Gollahon
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: San Francisco
mesh_terms: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; D001422:Bacterial Adhesion / Q000502:physiology; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D016923:Cell Death; D016974:Dickeya chrysanthemi / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000502:physiology; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D019073:HT29 Cells; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000166:cytology / Q000382:microbiology*; D016253:Microscopy, Immunoelectron; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; C073819:eaeA protein, E coli