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Infection and Immunity, January 2001, p. 9-14, Vol. 69, No. 1
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.1.9-14.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Mutator Natural Escherichia coli Isolates Have an Unusual Virulence Phenotype

Bertrand Picard,1 Patrick Duriez,2,3 Stéphanie Gouriou,1 Ivan Matic,3 Erick Denamur,2,* and François Taddei3

Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Brest,1 and INSERM U458, Hôpital Robert Debré2 and INSERM E9916, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades,3 Paris, France

Received 20 March 2000/Returned for modification 1 May 2000/Accepted 29 September 2000

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.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: INSERM U458, Hôpital Robert Debré, 48 boulevard Sérurier, 75019 Paris, France. Phone: 33-1-40-03-19-16. Fax: 33-1-40-03-19-03. E-mail: denamur{at}infobiogen.fr.

Infection and Immunity, January 2001, p. 9-14, Vol. 69, No. 1
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.1.9-14.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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