Nutritional Basis of E. coli
Colonization of the Mouse Intestine
Essentially nothing is
known about the nutrition of pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli strains
in the intestine. The goal of our research is to identify the sugars that
non-pathogenic and pathogenic strains of E. coli utilize for growth in the
mouse intestine and determine whether they are the same or different. Our
data to date suggest that some non-pathogenic strains of E. coli utilize
different sugars than other non-pathogenic E. coli strains in the
intestine and that pathogenic strains of E. coli can utilize still other
sugars for growth in the intestine. The data obtained in these studies
may result in a nutritional explanation as to how humans can be colonized
with several non-pathogenic E. coli strains simultaneously and may help to
determine whether there is a nutritional explanation as to why some humans
develop intestinal disease and some do not when all are exposed to the
same pathogenic E. coli strains. Furthermore, the data obtained may
eventually allow us to construct non-pathogenic E. coli strains that may
protect humans against intestinal E. coli pathogens. The student that
works on this project will learn to generate deletions in genes of
interest in both pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains of E. coli based on
known DNA sequences available in genomic databases and will learn to run
intestinal colonization studies with these mutants in mice.
