Abstract

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is an important health problem worldwide, with many millions of cases each year, and Escherichia coli is the most common organism causing UTI in humans. Also, E. coli is responsible for most infections in patients with chronic indwelling bladder catheter. The two asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) E. coli strains 83972 and VR50 are significantly better biofilm formers in their natural growth medium, human urine, than the two uropathogenic E. coli isolates CFT073 and 536. We used DNA microarrays to monitor the expression profile during biofilm growth in urine of the two ABU strains 83972 and VR50. Significant differences in expression levels were seen between the biofilm expression profiles of the two strains with the corresponding planktonic expression profiles in morpholinepropanesulfonic acid minimal laboratory medium and human urine; 417 and 355 genes were up- and down-regulated, respectively, during biofilm growth in urine of 83972 and VR50. Many genes involved in transcription and stress were up-regulated in biofilm-grown cells. The role in biofilm formation of four of the up-regulated genes, i.e., yceP, yqgA, ygiD, and aaeX, was investigated by creating single-knockout mutant versions of 83972 and VR50; all mutants showed reduced biofilm formation in urine by 18 to 43% compared with the wild type (P < 0.05). Also, the expression profile of strain 83972 in the human urinary tract partially overlaps with the biofilm expression profile.