RT Journal Article
T1 Virulence Potential and Genomic Mapping of the Worldwide Clone Escherichia coli ST131
A1 Lavigne, Jean-Philippe
A1 Vergunst, Annette C.
A1 Goret, Lucie
A1 Sotto, Albert
A1 Combescure, Christophe
A1 Blanco Álvarez, Jorge
A1 O’Callaghan, David
A1 Nicolas Chanoine, Marie Hélène
AB Recently, the worldwide propagation of clonal CTX-M-15-producing Escherichia coli isolates, namely ST131 and O25b:H4,has been reported. Like the majority of extra-intestinal pathogenic E. coli isolates, the pandemic clone ST131 belongs tophylogenetic group B2, and has recently been shown to be highly virulent in a mouse model, even though it lacks severalgenes encoding key virulence factors (Pap, Cnf1 and HlyA). Using two animal models, Caenorhabditis elegans and zebrafishembryos, we assessed the virulence of three E. coli ST131 strains (2 CTX-M-15- producing urine and 1 non-ESBL-producingfaecal isolate), comparing them with five non-ST131 B2 and a group A uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC). In C. elegans, the threeST131 strains showed intermediate virulence between the non virulent group A isolate and the virulent non-ST131 B2strains. In zebrafish, the CTX-M-15-producing ST131 UPEC isolates were also less virulent than the non-ST131 B2 strains,suggesting that the production of CTX-M-15 is not correlated with enhanced virulence. Amongst the non-ST131 B2 groupisolates, variation in pathogenic potential in zebrafish embryos was observed ranging from intermediate to highly virulent.Interestingly, the ST131 strains were equally persistent in surviving embryos as the non-ST131-group B2 strains, suggestingsimilar mechanisms may account for development of persistent infection. Optical maps of the genome of the ST131 strainswere compared with those of 24 reference E. coli strains. Although small differences were seen within the ST131 strains, thetree built on the optical maps showed that these strains belonged to a specific cluster (86% similarity) with only 45%similarity with the other group B2 strains and 25% with strains of group A and D. Thus, the ST131 clone has a geneticcomposition that differs from other group B2 strains, and appears to be less virulent than previously suspected.
PB PLOS
YR 2012
FD 2012
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22037
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22037
LA eng
NO Lavigne J.-P., Vergunst A.C., Goret L., Sotto A., Combescure C., et al. (2012) Virulence Potential and Genomic Mapping of the Worldwide Clone Escherichia coli ST131. PLoS ONE 7(3): e34294. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034294
NO INSERM U1047 is supported by INSERM, Université de Montpellier 1, La Ville de Nîmes and La Région Languedoc Roussillon. JPL and ACV are recipients of ‘Chercheur d’avenir’ awards from La Région Languedoc Roussillon
DS Minerva
RD 29 abr 2026