High carriage of adherent invasive E. coli in wildlife and healthy individuals

摘要

BackgroundAdherent invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) are suspected to be involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases. Since AIEC was first described in 1999, despite important progress on its genomic and immune characterizations, some crucial questions remain unanswered, such as whether there exists a natural reservoir, or whether there is asymptomatic carriage. The ECOR collection, including E. coli strains isolated mainly from the gut of healthy humans and animals, constitutes an ideal tool to investigate AIEC prevalence in healthy condition. A total of 61 E. coli strains were examined for characteristics of AIEC.