The suckling mouse has been used as a model to identify Vibrio cholerae intestinal colonization factors for over two decades, yet little is known about the location of recoverable organisms along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract following intragastric inoculation. In the present study, we determined the population dynamics of wild-type and avirulent mutant derivatives of both classical and El Tor biotype strains throughout the entire suckling mouse GI tract at various times after intragastric inoculation. Wild-type strains preferentially colonized the middle small bowel with a sharp demarcation between more proximal segments which had manyfold-fewer recoverable cells. Surprisingly, large and stable populations of viable cells were also recovered from the cecum and large bowel. Strains lacking toxin-coregulated pili (TCP−) were cleared from the small bowel; however, an El Tor TCP− strain colonized the cecum and large bowel almost as well as the wild-type strain. Strains lacking lipopolysaccharide O antigen (OA−) were efficiently cleared from the small bowel at early times but then showed net growth for the remainder of the infections. Moreover, large populations of the OA− strains were maintained in the large bowel. These results show that for the El Tor biotype neither TCP nor OA is required for colonization of the suckling mouse large bowel. Finally, similar percent recoveries of wild-type, TCP−, and OA− strains from the small bowel at an early time after infection suggest that TCP and OA are not required for strains of either biotype to resist bactericidal mechanisms in the suckling mouse GI tract.
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