Adhesion of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli to human small intestinal enterocytes

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Abstract
An improved enterocyte adhesion assay was used to examine a collection of 44 strains of enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) for their ability to adhere to the brush border of isolated human dudodenal enterocytes. Fourteen strains showed good adhesion; in each case the ability to adhere correlated with the production of colonization factor antigen I or II (CFA/I or CFA/II) fimbriae. CFA/II-positive ETEC producing coli surface antigens 1 and 3 (CS1 andCS3), coli surface antigens 2 and 3 (CS2 and CS3), and only coli surface antigen 3 (CS3) each showed good adhesion. CS3-mediated brush border attachment of CFA II-positive ETEC was demonstrated by EM with monospecific antibody and an immunoglod labeling technique. One CFA/I-positive ETEC strain was nonadherent in the assay, as were ETEC producing type 1 somatic fimbriae. Five animal ETEC strains producing K88, K99, F41 and 987P fimbriae were slightly more adhesive than control strains, but adhesion was significantly less than that of CFA-positive ETEC. Twenty-five human ETEC strains that lacked CFA/I and CFA/II were nonadherent, suggesting either that the surface antigens responsible for adhesion to human intestinal mucosa in these strains were not being produced or that mucosal receptors for these strains are present in regions of the small intestine other than the duodenum.