%0 Journal Article
%T Human Intestinal Cells Modulate Conjugational Transfer of Multidrug Resistance Plasmids between Clinical Escherichia coli Isolates
%A Ana Manuel Dantas Machado
%A Morten O. A. Sommer
%J PLOS ONE
%D 2014
%I Public Library of Science (PLoS)
%R 10.1371/journal.pone.0100739
%X Bacterial conjugation in the human gut microbiota is believed to play a major role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence plasmids. However, the modulation of bacterial conjugation by the human host remains poorly understood and there is a need for controlled systems to study this process. We established an in vitro co-culture system to study the interaction between human intestinal cells and bacteria. We show that the conjugation efficiency of a plasmid encoding an extended spectrum beta-lactamase is reduced when clinical isolates of Escherichia coli are co-cultured with human intestinal cells. We show that filtered media from co-cultures contain a factor that reduces conjugation efficiency. Protease treatment of the filtered media eliminates this inhibition of conjugation. This data suggests that a peptide or protein based factor is secreted on the apical side of the intestinal cells exposed to bacteria leading to a two-fold reduction in conjugation efficiency. These results show that human gut epithelial cells can modulate bacterial conjugation and may have relevance to gene exchange in the gut.
%U http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0100739