title: Bifidobacteria can protect from enteropathogenic infection through production of acetate.
abstract: The human gut is colonized with a wide variety of microorganisms, including species, such as those belonging to the bacterial genus Bifidobacterium, that have beneficial effects on human physiology and pathology. Among the most distinctive benefits of bifidobacteria are modulation of host defence responses and protection against infectious diseases. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects have barely been elucidated. To investigate these mechanisms, we used mice associated with certain bifidobacterial strains and a simplified model of lethal infection with enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7, together with an integrated 'omics' approach. Here we show that genes encoding an ATP-binding-cassette-type carbohydrate transporter present in certain bifidobacteria contribute to protecting mice against death induced by E. coli O157:H7. We found that this effect can be attributed, at least in part, to increased production of acetate and that translocation of the E. coli O157:H7 Shiga toxin from the gut lumen to the blood was inhibited. We propose that acetate produced by protective bifidobacteria improves intestinal defence mediated by epithelial cells and thereby protects the host against lethal infection.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Epithelial Immunobiology, RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fukuda
authors.forename: Hidehiro
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Toh
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hase
authors.forename: Kenshiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Oshima
authors.forename: Yumiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakanishi
authors.forename: Kazutoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tobe
authors.forename: Julie M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Topping
authors.forename: Tohru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Todd D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Kikuji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Itoh
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Hidetoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Masahira
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hattori
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohno
mesh_terms: D000085:Acetates / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019453:Escherichia coli O157 / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D014709:Vero Cells
chemical_list: D000085:Acetates