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Infection and Immunity, November 2000, p. 6168-6175, Vol. 68, No. 11
0019-9567/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Detection and Characterization of
Autoagglutination Activity by Campylobacter
jejuni
Naoaki
Misawa1,* and
Martin J.
Blaser1,2,
Division of Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt
University School of Medicine, A-3310 Medical Center North,
Nashville, Tennessee 37232,1 and
Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Nashville,
Tennessee 372122
Received 24 March 2000/Returned for modification 16 June
2000/Accepted 31 July 2000
In several gram-negative bacterial pathogens, autoagglutination
(AAG) activity is a marker for interaction with host cells and
virulence. Campylobacter jejuni strains also show AAG, but this property varies considerably among strains. To examine the characteristics of C. jejuni AAG, we developed a
quantitative in vitro assay. For strain 81-176, which shows high AAG,
activity was optimal for cells grown for
24 h, was independent of
growth temperature, and was best measured for cells suspended in
phosphate-buffered saline at 25°C for 24 h. AAG activity was
heat labile and was abolished by pronase or acid-glycine (pH 2.2)
treatment but not by lipase, DNase, or sodium metaperiodate. Strain
4182 has low AAG activity, but extraction with water increased AAG,
suggesting the loss of an inhibitor. Strain 6960 has weak AAG with no
effect due to water extraction. Our study with clinical isolates
suggests that C. jejuni strains may be grouped into three
AAG phenotypes. A variant derived from strain 81116 that is flagellate
but immotile showed the strong AAG exhibited by the parent strain,
suggesting that motility per se is not necessary for the AAG activity.
AAG correlated with both bacterial hydrophobicity and adherence to INT407 cells. Mutants which lack flagella (flaA,
flaB, and flbA) or common cell surface antigen
(peb1A) were constructed in strain 81-176 by natural
transformation-mediated allelic exchange. Both AAG activity and
bacterial hydrophobicity were abolished in the aflagellate mutants but
not the peb1A mutant. In total, these findings indicate
that C. jejuni AAG is highly associated with flagellar expression.
*
Corresponding author. Present address: Department of
Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Agriculture, Miyazaki
University, 1-1 Gakuen-Kibanadai nishi, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan.
Phone: 81-985-58-7284. Fax: 81-985-58-2884. E-mail:
a0d901u{at}cc.miyazaki-u.ac.jp.

Present address: Department of Medicine, New York University School
of Medicine, New York, NY
10016.
Infection and Immunity, November 2000, p. 6168-6175, Vol. 68, No. 11
0019-9567/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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