EF and JA supervised and participated in the conception of the study and contributed with reagents, materials and statistical tools. All authors read Enzalutamide clinical trial and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are important human intestinal pathogens. This pathotype is sub-grouped into typical (tEPEC) and atypical (aEPEC) EPEC [1–3]. These sub-groups differ according to the presence of the EAF plasmid, which is found only in the former group [1, 3]. Recent epidemiological

studies have shown an increasing prevalence of aEPEC in both developed and developing countries [4–9]. The main characteristic of EPEC’s pathogenicity is the development of a histopathologic phenotype in infected eukaryotic cells known as attaching/effacing (A/E) lesion. This lesion is also formed by enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), another diarrheagenic E. coli pathotype whose main pathogenic mechanism is the production of Shiga toxin [10]. The A/E lesion comprises microvillus Selleck MM-102 destruction and intimate bacterial adherence to enterocyte membranes, supported by

a pedestal rich in actin and other cytoskeleton components [11]. The ability to produce pedestals can be identified Pictilisib mw in vitro by the fluorescence actin staining (FAS) assay that detects actin accumulation underneath adherent bacteria indicative of pedestal generation [12]. The genes involved in the establishment of A/E lesions are located in a chromosomal pathogenicity island named the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) [13]. These genes encode a group of proteins involved in the formation of a type III secretion system (T3SS),

an outer membrane adhesin called intimin [14], its translocated receptor (translocated intimin receptor, Tir), chaperones and several other effector proteins Amobarbital that are injected into the targeted eukaryotic cell by the T3SS [15, 16]. Differentiation of intimin alleles represents an important tool for EPEC and EHEC typing in routine diagnosis as well as in pathogenesis, epidemiological, clonal and immunological studies. The intimin C-terminal end is responsible for receptor binding, and it has been suggested that different intimins may be responsible for different host tissue cell tropism (reviewed in [17]). The 5′ regions of eae genes are conserved, whereas the 3′ regions are heterogeneous. Thus far 27 eae variants encoding 27 different intimin types and sub-types have been established: α1, α2, β1, β2 (ξR/β2B), β3, γ1, γ2, δ (δ/β2O), ε1, ε2 (νR/ε2), ε3, ε4, ε5 (ξB), ζ, η1, η2, θ, ι1, ι2 (μR/ι2), κ, λ, μB, νB, ο, π, ρ and σ [[18–26] and unpublished data]. In HeLa and HEp-2 cells, tEPEC expresses localized adherence (LA) (with compact bacterial microcolony formation) that is mediated by the Bundle Forming Pilus (BFP), which is encoded on the EAF plasmid. In contrast, most aEPEC express the LA-like pattern, which is often detected in prolonged incubation periods (with loose microcolonies) [[2], reviewed in [3]].