Motility of the Pathogen and Intestinal Immunity of the Host in Experimental Cholera

Abstract

Previous studies from our laboratory have shown that motility is an important virulence factor for V. cholerae. Guentzel and Berry (1) observed that fully toxigenic and prototrophic, non-motile mutants were less able to cause disease following oral challenge in suckling mice than wild type parental strains. Moreover, motile organisms penetrated in larger numbers into intervillous spaces and crypts of Lieberkuhn than did nonmotile strains (2). Nonmotile strains were also less virulent for adult mice infected intraperitoneally with the organisms suspended in hog gastric mucin than parental strains (3). In studies of isolated ileal loops of adult rabbits Williams et al. (4) observed that motile vibrios penetrated into the crypts of Lieberkuhn more readily than did nonmotile strains.