Investigation of the cytotoxic capacity of some adherent opportunistic enterobacterial strains by the MTT assay and transmission electron microscopy

The purpose of this study was to determine the cytotoxic effect on CaCo-2 intestinal cells of dialysates obtained from bacterial cultures of some enterobacterial opportunistic strains with different sources of isolation (food, stool culture, acute diarrhoea, urine culture), previously tested and selected for their intensive adherence and invasion capacity to the cellular substratum and also for their cytotoxic effect on cell monolayers. In this study the level of cytotoxicity was measured quantitatively by means of the MTT assay and qualitatively by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The MTT method uses a tetrazolium salt for the quantitative spectrophotometric assay of CaCo-2 cells survival and proliferation rates in the presence of bacterial dialysates. This test detects the viable cells, which are able to reduce the tetrazolium salt and offers the advantages of a very simple, rapid and precise method. For TEM examination the ultrathin sections were prepared following the standard protocols. The most cytotoxic strains proved to be Citrobacter freundii 93 strain isolated from stool culture, and Enterobacter cloacae 43, isolated from food followed by E. coli 115 strain isolated from acute diarrhoea. These results correlate well with TEM results pointing out the cytotoxic effect of Enterobacter cloacae 43 strain and also its ability to induce attachment and to destroy the cell surface (A/E) of HEp-2 cells. Besides their great adherence and invasion capacity, the production and release of cytotoxic factors into the extracellular medium represent virulence factors in these strains. This could be responsible for the increase of the pathogenic potential of opportunistic bacteria and explain their implication in the etiology of severe infections and food-borne diseases. This study proved that the virulence of opportunistic pathogens is not correlated with the strain's origin, the most evident virulence features being exhibited by an Enterobacter cloacae strain isolated from food.