Background
Escherichia coli is a highly versatile bacterial species commonly found as part of the intestinal microbiota of warm-blooded animals. Most isolates are harmless but some have acquired virulence genes that allow them to cause numerous diseases within the gut (intestinal pathogenic
E. coli, InPEC) or extra-intestinally (extra-intestinal pathogenic
E. coli; ExPEC). Commensal
E. coli colonize the large intestine in vertebrates and appear to reside inside the mucus layer without contacting the underlying epithelium [
1]. In contrast, InPEC possess the ability to penetrate the mucus layer and colonize the mucosa causing disease such as diarrhea [
2]. Adherent-invasive
E. coli (AIEC) strains share many genetic and phenotypic features with ExPEC strains but are rather involved in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease (CD) [
3‐
5].
The mucus layer that covers the intestinal epithelium plays a critical role in gut homeostasis. The intestinal mucus contains mucins which are highly
O-glycosylated proteins. Mucins play an important role in shaping the intestinal microbiota as an alteration of the glycan availability modifies the microbiota composition [
6]. By producing specific glycosidases, several species of the gut microbiota release sugars from
O-glycans into the intestinal lumen [
7,
8]. Released mucus-derived sugars, including
N-acetylglucosamine (NAG),
N-acetylneuraminic acid (NANA), galactose, fucose, mannose and
N-acetylgalactosamine provide direct source of carbohydrates and promote the growth of commensal and pathogenic bacteria including
E. coli [
7‐
10]. In addition to their role as nutrients, some mucus-derived sugars can act as regulatory signals that influence bacterial colonization and adherence to intestinal cells [
11‐
14]. Enterohemorrhagic
E. coli (EHEC) uses fucose, NAG and NANA as signaling molecules to modulate its metabolism and regulate the expression of its virulence repertoire [
12,
15]. We recently showed that the catabolism of NAG and NANA inhibits EHEC adhesion to epithelial cells through down-regulation of the locus of enterocytes effacement expression under NagC regulatory control [
16].
Biofilms could play a key role in bacterial colonization of the healthy gut and in intestinal diseases. Mucin has been reported to be involved in biofilm formation by
E. coli [
17,
18], suggesting its potential role in modulating
E. coli colonization in the intestinal tract. The ability of biofilm formation in vitro varies extensively among
E. coli isolates [
19] and many
E. coli strains are believed to form biofilm in the intestinal tract [
20]. As such, AIEC are known to be higher biofilm producers than non-AIEC strains [
21]. The ability to form biofilm could be part of the etiology of IBD since an increased presence of biofilms formed by the
Bacteroides fragilis group and the
Enterobacteriaceae family has been observed in intestinal biopsy specimens of people affected with these diseases [
22,
23].
Alteration of the gut mucosal integrity and of microbiota could also change the mucus-derived sugars availability. Our hypothesis is that in healthy conditions, the integrity of the intestinal mucus and the functions of gut microbiota prevent biofilm formation of pathogenic E. coli. We evaluated the influence of mucus-derived sugars on biofilm formation of AIEC reference strain LF82. We show that NAG can reduce biofilm formation of LF82 and that the transcriptional regulator of NAG catabolism, NagC appears to be involved in the early steps of its biofilm formation. We also showed that mucus-derived sugars can influence biofilm formation of different E. coli strains from other pathotypes.
Discussion
There is growing evidence that microbiota-produced metabolites can also be specifically sensed by pathogens as signals to induce or repress virulence genes [
28]. We show that the mucin sugars NAG, NANA and fucose can reduce the biofilm formation of AIEC strain LF82 and other pathogenic
E. coli. A recent study showed that fucose modulated biofilm formation of
Campylobacter jejuni [
29]. We observed that the influence of mucus-derived sugars on biofilm formation was strain-dependent, reflecting the high genetic diversity and the variability of metabolic patterns between
E. coli strains [
30,
31]. It is known that
E. coli preference for mucus-derived sugars varies from one strain to another [
10,
32,
33]. Interestingly, the repressor effect of NAG was common among the tested
E. coli strains as NAG supplementation reduced biofilm formation of AIEC strain LF82, murine strain NC101, EHEC strain EDL933 and to a lower extent EAEC strain 17.2 and K-12 strain MG1655.
We demonstrated that the effect of NAG on biofilm formation of AIEC strain LF82 is NagC-dependent. NagC is a repressor of
nag operon involved in catabolism of NAG in
E. coli [
34,
35]. The uptake of this sugar leads to the production of intracellular NAG-6-P that will inactivate the regulator NagC [
36]. Our study shows that the inactivation of NagC, whether it is caused by the catabolism of NAG or by a mutation of
nagC, is responsible for the decreased biofilm formation. Thus, NagC is a positive regulator of biofilm formation in LF82. Interestingly, NagC is also involved in the expression of the locus of enterocytes effacement virulence genes of EHEC as well as type 1 fimbriae of
E. coli K-12 [
13,
16,
36].
The real-time monitoring of LF82 biofilm formation using microfluidic system showed that early steps are impaired by the mutation of nagC. Biofilm formation initially required the attachment of the bacteria to a surface and the cell-to-cell adhesion that leads to the formation of microcolonies. Thus, during these steps, NagC might influence the expression of structures involved in early adhesion of bacteria. In contrast to the situation in static conditions, the biofilm in dynamic conditions was insensitive to the presence of NAG. It is possible that constant renewal of media in dynamic conditions influences NAG catabolism and thus NagC activity.
Type 1 fimbriae are key factors that facilitate adhesion to a surface and cell-to-cell aggregation during establishment of biofilm on abiotic surfaces [
37,
38]. They also participate in biofilm formation and in the adhesion-and-invasion process in AIEC strains such as LF82 [
21,
39,
40]. In the present study, we show that NagC activates the gene expression and the production of type 1 fimbriae of AIEC strain LF82. This is similar to the work showing NagC regulation on type 1 fimbriae in
E. coli K-12 MG1655 [
13]. Based on NagC consensus DNA binding site generated from known NagC binding sequences [
13,
16,
41,
42], two different binding sites were found upstream of the promoter of
fimB recombinase in LF82. FimB is involved in the OFF-to-ON switching of type 1 fimbriation and sequences found in LF82 were identical and in the same distance to those of
fimB promoter in K-12 strain MG1655 [
13] (Additional file
5: Figure S4). This indicates that NagC control on type 1 fimbriae could influence at least in part the biofilm formation of LF82. In contrast, NAG supplementation did not influence type 1 fimbriae production of LF82 strain. It is possible that NAG-dependant repression on type 1 fimbriae was transient because NAG is rapidly consumed by the strain). NAG might also influence other factors contributing to biofilm formation of LF82 as NAG was also shown to influence the production of curli in
E. coli K-12 [
11].
Dysbiosis that occurs during IBD can favor AIEC growth and probably biofilm formation [
43]. As glycosylation of the mucin is defective in CD [
44] and microbiota activity is modified, it is possible that the availability of mucin sugars will influence not only the metabolic activity but also the virulence behavior including the pathogens’ ability of biofilm formation. Thus, factors that regulate biofilm formation could signal to repress expression of the type 1 fimbriae and other factors contributing to biofilm of LF82. By affecting the concentration of free NAG available in the digestive tract, gut bacterial species expressing
N-acetylglucosaminidase [
6] might therefore influence
E. coli biofilm formation through a modulation of NagC activity. Interestingly, administration of glucosamine can reduce production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and therefore intestinal inflammation in murine model of IBD could influence the activity of the flora including AIEC and reduce their biofilm formation and colonization ability [
45,
46].
Authors’ contributions
The experiments were performed mainly by JFS with the help of PV. JFS and JH performed the data analysis. The study was designed by JH, JFS, GLB and PV. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.