J. Bacteriol., Sep 1996, 5472-5479, Vol 178, No. 18
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology

Adhesion of the positively charged bacterium Stenotrophomonas (Xanthomonas) maltophilia 70401 to glass and Teflon

BA Jucker, H Harms and AJ Zehnder
Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Dubendorf, Switzerland.

Medical implants are often colonized by bacteria which may cause severe infections. The initial step in the colonization, the adhesion of bacteria to the artificial solid surface, is governed mainly by long- range van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between the solid surface and the bacterial cell. While van der Waals forces are generally attractive, the usually negative charge of bacteria and solid surfaces leads to electrostatic repulsion. We report here on the adhesion of a clinical isolate, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia 70401, which is, at physiological pH, positively charged. S. maltophilia has an electrophoretic mobility of +0.3 x 10(-8) m2 V-1 s-1 at pH 7 and an overall surface isoelectric point at pH 11. The positive charge probably originates from proteins located in the outer membrane. For this bacterium, both long-range forces involved in adhesion are attractive. Consequently, adhesion of S. maltophilia to negatively charged surfaces such as glass and Teflon is much favored compared with the negatively charged bacterium Pseudomonas putida mt2. While adhesion of negatively charged bacteria is impeded in media of low ionic strength because of a thick negatively charged diffuse layer, adhesion of S. maltophilia was particularly favored in dilute medium. The adhesion efficiencies of S. maltophilia at various ionic strengths could be explained in terms of calculated long-range interaction energies between S. maltophilia and glass or Teflon.

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