Exposure to bile influences biofilm formation by Listeria monocytogenes.docVIP

Gut Pathogens BioMedCentral Short report Open Access Exposure to bile influences biofilm formation by Listeria monocytogenes Máire Begley*1,2, Colm Kerr1,2 and Colin Hill1,2 Address: 1Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland and 2Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Email: Máire Begley* - m.begley@ucc.ie; Colm Kerr - colmkerr@; Colin Hill - c.hill@ucc.ie * Corresponding author Published: 28 May 2009 Received: 27 April 2009 Accepted: 28 May 2009 Gut Pathogens 2009, 1:11 doi:10.1186/1757-4749-1-11 This article is available from: /content/1/1/11 ? 2009 Begley et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract In the present study we demonstrate that the initial attachment of Listeria monocytogenes cells to plastic surfaces was significantly increased by growth in the presence of bile. Improved biofilm formation was confirmed by crystal violet staining, microscopy and bioluminescence detection of a luciferase-tagged strain. Enhanced biofilm formation in response to bile may influence the ability of L. monocytogenes to form biofilms in vivo during infection and may contribute to survival of this important pathogen in the human gastrointestinal tract and gallbladder. Findings To survive in and subsequently colonize the human gas- trointestinal tract the food-borne pathogen Listeria mono- cytogenes the intra-host survival of several enteric bacteria (reviewed in [5]). Bile has also been shown to influence biofilm for- mation by pathogenic genera (e.g. Salmonella enterica var. Typhimurium and Vibrio cholerae) [10,11] and indigenous commensal bacteria (e.g. Bacteroides fragilis and Lactobacil- lus rhamnosus) [12,13]. Biof