Keywords
aerobic respiration
fecal matter
environment
How to Cite
Abstract
The anaerobic intestinal setting of warm-blooded animals is considered E. colfs main habitat. However E. coli transmission to new hosts requires the release of bacterial cells to an aerobic environment; we postulate that E. coli uses aerobic respiration to multiply in fecal matter during this phase of the cycle. To test this idea, we incubated fresh chicken fecal matter in aerobic and anaerobic settings and showed that E. coli counts increased significantly when fecal matter was incubated in the presence of oxygen. Our results suggest that aerobic growth in fecal matter outside of the host may be a crucial phase of E. coli’s natural cycle. This feature may extend to pathogenic members of the Enterobacteriaceae family.
References
Savageau, M. 1983. "Escherichia coli habitats, cell types, and molecular mechanisms of gene control". American Naturalist, 122: 732-744.
Ksoll, W.; Ishii, S.; Sadowsky, M.; Hicks, R. 2007. "Presence and sources of fecal coliform bacteria in epilithic periphyton communities of Lake Superior". Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 73: 3771-3778.
Hadjipetrou, L.; Stouthamer, A. 1965. "Energy production during nitrate respiration by Aerobacter aerogenes". Journal of General Microbiology, 38: 29-34.
Bueno, E.; Mesa, S.; Bedmar, E.; Richardson, D.; Delgado, M. 2012. "Bacterial adaptation ofrespiration from oxic to microoxic and anoxic conditions: redox control". Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, 16: 819-852.
Jones, S.; Gibson, T.; Maltby, R.; Chowdhury, F.; Stewart, V; Cohen, P; Conway, T. 2011. "Anaerobic respiration of Escherichia coli in the mouse intestine". Infection and Immunity, 79: 4218-4226.
Govantes, F.; Albrecht, J.; Gunsalus, R. 2000. "Oxygen regulation of the Escherichia coli cytochrome d oxidase (cydAB) operon: roles of multiple promoters and the Fnr-1 and Fnr-2 binding sites". Molecular Microbiology, 37: 1456-1469.
Mira, A.; Ochman, H.; Moran, N. 2001. "Deletional bias and the evolution of bacterial genomes". Trends in Genetics, 17: 589-596.
Russell, J.; Jarvis, G. 2001. "Practical mechanisms for interrupting the oral-fecal lifecycle of Escherichia coli". Journal of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, 3: 265-272.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2015 Gabriela Vasco, Thea Spindel, Sara Carrera, Anne Grigg, Gabriel A. Trueba P.