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Infection and Immunity, January 2007, p. 30-34, Vol. 75, No. 1
0019-9567/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.01117-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Biological Trojan Horse: Antigen 43 Provides Specific Bacterial Uptake and Survival in Human Neutrophils{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Sara Fexby,1 Thomas Bjarnsholt,1 Peter Østrup Jensen,2 Viktoria Roos,1 Niels Høiby,2 Michael Givskov,1 and Per Klemm1*

Center for Biomedical Microbiology, BioCentrum-DTU, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark,1 Department of Clinical Microbiology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark2

Received 17 July 2006/ Returned for modification 24 August 2006/ Accepted 2 October 2006

Escherichia coli is a versatile pathogen causing millions of infections in humans every year. This bacterium can form multicellular aggregates when it expresses a self-associating protein, antigen 43 (Ag43), on its surface. We have discovered that Ag43-expressing E. coli cells are efficiently taken up by human defense cells, polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs), in an opsonin-independent manner. Surprisingly, the phagocytosed bacteria were not immediately killed but resided as tight aggregates within the PMNs. Our observations indicate that Ag43-mediated uptake and survival in PMNs constitute a mechanism to subvert one of the primary defense mechanisms of the human body.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center for Biomedical Microbiology, BioCentrum-DTU, Building 301, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark. Phone: 4545252506. Fax: 4545932809. E-mail: pkl{at}biocentrum.dtu.dk.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 9 October 2006.

Editor: J. B. Bliska

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://iai.asm.org/.

Infection and Immunity, January 2007, p. 30-34, Vol. 75, No. 1
0019-9567/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.01117-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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