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Characterization of Colibactin-Producing <i>Escherichia coli</i> Isolated from Japanese Patients with Colorectal Cancer

2020; National Institute of Infectious Diseases; Volume: 73; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7883/yoken.jjid.2020.066

1884-2836

Yuko Yoshikawa, Yuta Tsunematsu, Nobuo Matsuzaki, Yuichiro Hirayama, Fumi Higashiguchi, Michio Sato, Yuji Iwashita, Noriyuki Miyoshi, Michihiro Mutoh, Hideki Ishikawa, Haruhiko Sugimura, Keiji Wakabayashi, Kenji Watanabe,

Clostridium difficile and Clostridium perfringens research

We investigated the relationship between colibactin-producing (clb+) Escherichia coli and colorectal adenocarcinoma. In total, 729 E. coli colonies were isolated from tumor and surrounding non-tumor regions in resected specimens from 34 Japanese patients; 450 colonies were from the tumor regions and 279 from the non-tumor regions. clb+ bacteria were found in tumor regions of 11 patients (11/34, 32.4%) and they were also detected in the non-tumor regions of 7 out of these 11 patients (7/34, 20.6%). The prevalence of clb+ isolates was 72.7% (327/450) and 44.1% (123/279) in tumor and non-tumor regions, respectively. All the recovered clb+ isolates belonged to the phylogenetic group B2 and were the most predominant type in tumor regions. Hemolytic (α-hemolysin-positive, hlyA+) and non-hemolytic (α-hemolysin-negative, hlyA-) clb+ isolates were obtained from patient #19; however, the prevalence of hlyA+ clb+ isolates was significantly higher in tumor regions (35/43, 81.4%) than in non-tumor regions (3/19, 15.8%). Moreover, a significantly higher production of N-myristoyl-D-asparagine, a by-product of colibactin biosynthesis, was observed in hlyA+ clb+ isolates than in hlyA- clb+ isolates. Our results suggest that hlyA+ clb+ E. coli may have a selective advantage in colorectal colonization and, consequently, might play a role in carcinogenesis. The presence of hlyA+ clb+ bacteria in healthy individuals is a potential risk marker of colorectal cancer.