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Journal of Bacteriology, November 2007, p. 8270-8276, Vol. 189, No. 22
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00785-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
The Bordetella Bps Polysaccharide Is Critical for Biofilm Development in the Mouse Respiratory Tract
Gina Parise Sloan,1
Cheraton F. Love,2
Neelima Sukumar,2
Meenu Mishra,2 and
Rajendar Deora1,2*
Program in Molecular Genetics,1
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Medical Center Blvd., Winston-Salem, North Carolina 271572
Received 20 May 2007/
Accepted 15 June 2007
Bordetellae are respiratory pathogens that infect both humans and animals. Bordetella bronchiseptica establishes asymptomatic and long-term to life-long infections of animal nasopharynges. While the human pathogen Bordetella pertussis is the etiological agent of the acute disease whooping cough in infants and young children, it is now being increasingly isolated from the nasopharynges of vaccinated adolescents and adults who sometimes show milder symptoms, such as prolonged cough illness. Although it has been shown that Bordetella can form biofilms in vitro, nothing is known about its biofilm mode of existence in mammalian hosts. Using indirect immunofluorescence and scanning electron microscopy, we examined nasal tissues from mice infected with B. bronchiseptica. Our results demonstrate that a wild-type strain formed robust biofilms that were adherent to the nasal epithelium and displayed architectural attributes characteristic of a number of bacterial biofilms formed on inert surfaces. We have previously shown that the Bordetella Bps polysaccharide encoded by the bpsABCD locus is critical for the stability and maintenance of three-dimensional structures of biofilms. We show here that Bps is essential for the formation of efficient nasal biofilms and is required for the colonization of the nose. Our results document a biofilm lifestyle for Bordetella in mammalian respiratory tracts and highlight the essential role of the Bps polysaccharide in this process and in persistence of the nares.
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Medical Center Blvd., Gray 5086, Winston-Salem, NC 27157. Phone: (336) 716-1124. Fax: (336) 716-9928. E-mail:
rdeora{at}wfubmc.edu
Published ahead of print on 22 June 2007.
Journal of Bacteriology, November 2007, p. 8270-8276, Vol. 189, No. 22
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00785-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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