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Survival and growth of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in free-living amoebae (FLA) and bacterial virulence properties.

ABSTRACT: Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is found ubiquitously in the environment and is an important emerging nosocomial pathogen. S. maltophilia has been recently described as an Amoebae-Resistant Bacteria (ARB) that exists as part of the microbiome of various free-living amoebae (FLA) from waters. Co-culture approaches with Vermamoeba vermiformis demonstrated the ability of this bacterium to resist amoebal digestion. In the present study, we assessed the survival and growth of six environmental and one clinical S. maltophilia strains within two amoebal species: Acanthamoeba castellanii and Willaertia magna. We also evaluated bacterial virulence properties using the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. A co-culture approach was carried out over 96 hours and the abundance of S. maltophilia cells was measured using quantitative PCR and culture approach. The presence of bacteria inside the amoeba was confirmed using confocal microscopy. Our results showed that some S. maltophilia strains were able to multiply within both amoebae and exhibited multiplication rates up to 17.5 and 1166 for A. castellanii and W. magna, respectively. In contrast, some strains were unable to multiply in either amoeba. Out of the six environmental S. maltophilia strains tested, one was found to be virulent. Surprisingly, this strain previously isolated from a soil amoeba, Micriamoeba, was unable to infect both amoebal species tested. We further performed an assay with a mutant strain of S. maltophilia BurA1 lacking the efflux pump ebyCAB gene and found the mutant to be more virulent and more efficient for intra-amoebal multiplication. Overall, the results obtained strongly indicated that free-living amoebae could be an important ecological niche for S. maltophilia.

SUBMITTER: Denet E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5798789 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Survival and growth of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in free-living amoebae (FLA) and bacterial virulence properties.

Denet Elodie E Vasselon Valentin V Burdin Béatrice B Nazaret Sylvie S Favre-Bonté Sabine S

PloS one 20180205 2

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is found ubiquitously in the environment and is an important emerging nosocomial pathogen. S. maltophilia has been recently described as an Amoebae-Resistant Bacteria (ARB) that exists as part of the microbiome of various free-living amoebae (FLA) from waters. Co-culture approaches with Vermamoeba vermiformis demonstrated the ability of this bacterium to resist amoebal digestion. In the present study, we assessed the survival and growth of six environmental and one c ...[more]

PMID: 29401523

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Project description:Most studies on bacterial virulence focus on the pathogen itself. However, it is important to recall that the in-host behavior and the virulence of bacterial pathogens constitute a complex situation that depends on both the microorganisms and the infected host. While healthy people (the community) is infected by classical pathogenic microorganisms, able to cope with the anti-infection defenses of the host, in the case of people with basal diseases, debilitated or immunodepressed, the range of pathogens able to cause infection is wider and includes the so-named opportunistic pathogens, which lack the inherent ability to cause disease in healthy hosts and rarely produce infections in the community. Some of the most relevant opportunistic pathogens, as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, have an environmental origin and, in occasions, present interesting biotechnological properties. Consequently, it is important knowing whether S. maltophilia isolates recovered from infections constitute a specific phylogenetic branch that has evolved toward acquiring a virulent phenotype as it happens in the case of classical pathogens or rather, any member of this bacterial species is capable of producing infection and its pathogenic behavior is mainly a consequence of the host situation. To address this question, we analyzed a set of environmental and clinical S. maltophilia strains. Our results indicate that this opportunistic pathogen presents a large core genome and that the distribution of genes in general, and of known virulence determinants in particular, is similar among environmental and clinical isolates. The majority of genes not belonging to the S. maltophilia core genome are present in just one or two of the analyzed strains. This indicates that, more than speciation into different lineages (virulent and environmental), the evolution of S. maltophilia is based in the strain-specific acquisition of genes, likely involved in the adaptation of this bacterial species to different microniches. In addition, both environmental and clinical isolates present low susceptibility to several antimicrobials. Altogether our results support that S. maltophilia does not present a specific evolutionary branch toward virulence and most likely infection is mainly the consequence of the impaired anti-infective response of the infected patients.

Dataset Information

Survival and growth of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in free-living amoebae (FLA) and bacterial virulence properties.

Publications

Survival and growth of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in free-living amoebae (FLA) and bacterial virulence properties.

Similar Datasets

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