title: Repression of flagella is a common trait in field isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Dublin and is associated with invasive human infections.
abstract: The nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica serovar Dublin is adapted to cattle but infrequently infects humans, very often resulting in invasive infections with high levels of morbidity and mortality. A Salmonella-induced intestinal acute inflammatory response is postulated as a mechanism to prevent bacterial dissemination to systemic sites. In S. enterica serovar Typhimurium, flagella contribute to this response by providing motility and FliC-mediated activation of pattern recognition receptors. In this study, we found 4 Salmonella enterica isolates, with the antigenic formula 9,12:-:-, that, based on fliC sequence and multilocus sequence type (MLST) analyses, are aflagellate S. Dublin isolates. Interestingly, all were obtained from human bloodstream infections. Thus, we investigated the potential role of flagella in the unusual invasiveness exhibited by S. Dublin in humans by analyzing flagellation and proinflammatory properties of a collection of 10 S. Dublin human clinical isolates. We found that 4 of 7 blood isolates were aflagellate due to significantly reduced levels of fliC expression, whereas all 3 isolates from other sources were flagellated. Lack of flagella correlated with a reduced ability of triggering interleukin-8 (IL-8) and CCL20 chemokine expression in human intestinal Caco-2 cells and with reduced early inflammation in the ceca of streptomycin-pretreated C57/BL6 mice. These results indicate that flagella contribute to the host intestinal inflammatory response to Salmonella serovar Dublin and suggest that their absence may contribute to its systemic dissemination through dampening of the gut immune response. Analysis of FliC production in a collection of cattle isolates indicated that the aflagellate phenotype is widely distributed in field isolates of S. Dublin.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Desarrollo Biotecnológico, Instituto de Higiene, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
authors.forename: Lucía
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yim
authors.forename: Sebastián
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sasías
authors.forename: Arací
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martínez
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Betancor
authors.forename: Verónica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Estevez
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Scavone
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bielli
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sirok
authors.forename: José Alejandro
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Chabalgoity
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D018938:Caco-2 Cells; D002432:Cecum; D054418:Chemokine CCL20 / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005407:Flagella / Q000502:physiology*; D005408:Flagellin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D016209:Interleukin-8 / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D012480:Salmonella Infections / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D019779:Salmonella enterica / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000502:physiology; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D054418:Chemokine CCL20; D016209:Interleukin-8; D005408:Flagellin