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PMID: 11119483 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Mutator natural Escherichia coli isolates have an unusual virulence phenotype.

Infection and immunity ·Vol. 69 ·No. 1 ·2001-01-00 ·Pages 9-14

Picard B, Duriez P, Gouriou S, Matic I, Denamur E, Taddei F

Abstract

A small percentage of natural Escherichia coli isolates (both commensal and pathogenic) have a mutator phenotype related to defects in methyl-directed mismatch repair (MR) genes. We investigated whether there was a direct link between the mutator phenotype and virulence by (i) studying the relationships between mutation rate and virulence in a mouse model of extraintestinal virulence for 88 commensal and extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli isolates and (ii) comparing the virulence in mice of MR-deficient and MR-proficient strains that were otherwise isogenic. The results provide no support for the hypothesis that the mutator phenotype has a direct role in virulence or is associated with increased virulence. Most of the natural mutator strains studied displayed an unusual virulence phenotype with (i) a lack of correspondence between the number of virulence determinants and pathogenicity in mice and (ii) an intermediate level of virulence. On a large evolutionary scale, the mutator phenotype may help parasites to achieve an intermediate rate of virulence which mathematical models predict to be selected for during long-term parasite-host interactions.

MeSH Terms
Animals Base Pair Mismatch DNA Repair/genetics Escherichia coli/genetics,pathogenicity Female Mice Mutation Phenotype Virulence
Authors & Affiliations
6 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Picard B
Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Brest, Paris, France.
Duriez P
Gouriou S
Matic I
Denamur E
Taddei F
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Article Info
Journal
Infection and immunity
Abbr.
Infect Immun
ISSN
0019-9567
DOI
10.1128/IAI.69.1.9-14.2001
Published
2001-01-00
Pages
9-14
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
0246127
PMCID
PMC97849
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.1.9-14.2001 PMC Full Text View journal details
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