Investigations on the role of flagella in the colonization of infant mice withCampylobacter jejuniand attachment ofCampylobacter jejunito human epithelial cell lines

Abstract

SUMMARY: The biochemical and biological properties of the flagella ofCampylobacter jejunihave been investigated using two variants selected from a flagellate, motile clinical isolate (strain 81116): a flagellate, non-motile variant (SF-1) and an aflagellate variant (SF-2). Phenotypic and biochemical analysis of the strains and amino acid analysis of the isolated flagella suggest that the variants differed from the wild-type strain only in the absence of flagella and/or motility. The aflagellato variant poorly colonized the gastrointestinal tract of infant mice but the flagellate, non-motile variant colonized the mice as successfully as the wild-type strain.³⁵S-labelled organisms were used to investigate the attachment of the variants to human epithelial cell monolayersin vitro. The flagellate, non-motile strain attached more efficiently to the cells than the wild-type strain or the aflagellate strain. Differences in attachment suggest that an adhesin is intimately associated with flagella ofC jejuniand that active flagella mediate only a tenuous association with host cells. This adhesin attached most efficiently to cells of intestinal epithelial origin and was not specifically inhibited by various sugars.