Growth and Motility of Gut Commensal Escherichia Coli in Health and Disease

Despite the growth of E. coli is comparatively well investigated, there is still a lack of knowledge on growth of gut commensal E. coli in health and disease.Our previous investigations have shown that there is an obvious deviation from the norm in the gut microbiota of Armenian Crohn's disease (CD) patients. The proportions of members of the CFB lineages were similar in the healthy and diseased individuals, while the increased numbers of Enterobacteriaceae members in fecal samples were found. It has been shown that growth of commensal E. coli isolates from the inflamed gut differed from those of E. coli in healthy individuals.In this study we inspected the effect of metronidazole (the antibiotic used in CD therapy) on growth and motility of commensal E. coli from the healthy and CD voluntaries.27 patients with CD and 35 healthy individuals were enrolled in this study. The logistic differential equation of Verhulst has been used to characterize the growth of commensal E. coli isolates.Results have demonstrated the increased numbers of E. coli isolates in feces of subjects with active CD. In vitro investigations of growth and motility of gut commensal E. coli isolates have shown that addition of metronidazole to the culture medium does not affect the growth parameters of isolates of healthy people. While statistically significant differences in growth parameters were obtained for patients' isolates in the culture medium with metronidazole, in contrast to the medium without it.The presented data show that the chronic inflammation and drugs used during the inflammation effect on physiological characteristics of gut commensal bacteria.