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Infect. Immun. doi:10.1128/IAI.00419-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Yersinia enterocolitica Infection of Mice Reveals Clonal Invasion and Abscess Formation

Max von Pettenkofer Institute for Hygiene and Medical Microbiology, Ludwig Maximillians University, D-80336 Munich, Germany

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: truelzsch{at}mvp.uni-muenchen.de.

	Abstract

Yersinia enterocolitica is a common cause of food borne gastrointestinal disease leading to self limiting diarrhea and mesenteric lymphadenitis. Occasionally focal abscess formation in liver and spleen is observed in certain predisposed patients (iron overload states such as hemochromatosis). In the oral mouse infection model yersiniae produce a similar disease with replication of yersiniae in the small intestine, invasion of Peyers patches and dissemination to liver and spleen. In these tissues and organs, yersiniae are known to replicate predominately extracellularly and to form microcolonies. By infecting mice orally with an equal mixture of green and red fluorescing Yersiniae (expressing green or red fluorescent protein) we could show for the first time that yersiniae produce exclusively monoclonal microcolonies in Peyers patches, liver and spleen indicating that single bacterium is sufficient to induce microcolony/microabscess formation in vivo. Furthermore we present evidence for the clonal invasion of Peyers patches from the small intestine. The finding that only very few yersiniae are able to establish microcolonies in Peyers patches is due to both Yersinia specific and host specific factors. We demonstrate that yersiniae growing in the small intestinal lumen show strongly reduced levels of invasin, the most important early invasion factor for Peyers patches. Furthermore we show that the host severely restricts sequential microcolony formation in previously infected Peyers patches.

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