Isolation and characterization of mini-Tn5Km2 insertion mutants of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 deficient in adherence to caco-2 cells

Adherence of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) to intestinal epithelium is essential for initiation of the infection. To identify genes involved in adherence, an EHEC O157:H7 strain (O157Sakai) was mutagenized by mini-Tn5Km2, where Km refers to kanamycin resistance, and 4,677 insertion mutants were screened for their ability to form microcolonies (MC) on Caco-2 cells. The less adherent mutants were divided into three groups: those with no adherent ability (designated as class 1 mutants, n = 10), those less adherent than the wild type (class 2 mutants, n = 16), and those unable to form MC but which adhered in a diffuse manner (class 3 mutants, n = 1). The sites of insertion in class 1 mutants were all found within genes of the locus for enterocyte effacement (LEE) thought to be required for type III protein secretion. Indeed, the class 1 mutants failed to secrete type III secreted proteins such as EspA and Tir into the culture medium. The insertions in class 2 mutants were outside the LEE, and all the mutants except one were able to secrete type III proteins into the culture medium. The class 3 mutant had the insertion in the tir gene in the LEE and was deficient in Tir and intimin expression, suggesting that in the absence of intimin-Tir, O157Sakai can still adhere to Caco-2 cells but in a diffused manner. This was confirmed by construction of a nonpolar eae (encoding intimin) mutant. Examination of the eae mutant together with O157Sakai and one of the class 1 mutants for the ability to form MC revealed that EHEC initially adhered diffusely at 1.5 h after infection. Following washing out of the nonadherent bacteria, while wild-type EHEC bacteria developed MC for another 2 to 3 h on Caco-2 cells, the eae mutant diffusely adhered throughout the infection without forming MC. MC with O157Sakai but not the diffusely adherent eae mutant could evoke F-actin condensation beneath the bacterium. Our results suggest that EHEC encodes additional adherence-associated loci and that the type III secreted proteins are involved in the initial diffuse adherence, while the intimin-Tir interaction is required for the subsequent development of MC.