Novel non-flagellated surface motility mediated by chemical signaling in Citrobacter rodentium

Abstract

Enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are human intestinal pathogens of clinical importance and their mechanism of pathogenicity is widely studied. However, both EHEC and EPEC poorly infect mice, whereas they do not develop important characteristics of the disease, hindering studies about mechanisms of virulence in vivo. Citrobacter rodentium exhibits high similarity of its genes with these human pathogens, including the island of pathogenicity Locus of Enterocyte Effacement (LEE). Therefore, C. rodentium becomes an alternative in vivo model for microorganisms that harbor LEE. The QseC directly regulates LEE as well as virulence mechanisms on these pathogens. Here, we report a novel surface motility in C. rodentium QseC-mediated in this non-flagellated bacterium. Moreover, we show norepinephrine and ethanolamine act as environmental signals in this movement. Hence, this study clarifies a novel role of the sensor QseC in completely unreported motility process of C. rodentium.