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J. Bacteriol. doi:10.1128/JB.00785-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

The Bordetella Bps Polysaccharide is Critical for Biofilm Development in the Mouse Respiratory Tract

Program in Molecular Genetics, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Medical Center Blvd., Winston-Salem, NC. 27157

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: rdeora{at}wfubmc.edu.

	Abstract

Bordetellae are respiratory pathogens that infect both humans and animals. B. bronchiseptica establishes asymptomatic and long-term to life-long colonization of the animal nasopharynx. While the human pathogen B. pertussis is the etiological agent of the acute disease whooping cough in infants and young children, it is now being increasingly isolated from the nasopharynx 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. We examined nasal tissues by indirect immunofluorescence and scanning electron microscopy, from mice infected with B. bronchiseptica. Our results demonstrate that the wild type strain forms robust biofilms that are adherent to the nasal epithelium and display 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 3-D structures of biofilms. We show herein 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 the mammalian respiratory tract and highlight the essential role of the Bps polysaccharide in this process and in persistence of the nares.

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