Cellulose and PapG are important for Escherichia coli causing recurrent urinary tract infection in women.

Purpose: To identify Escherichia coli factors associated with bacterial persistence in the human urogenital tract using well-defined clinical isolates from women with cystitis.

Methods: E. coli were isolated from women suffering from recurrent cystitis.

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli modulates immune responses and its curli fimbriae interact with the antimicrobial peptide LL-37.

Bacterial growth in multicellular communities, or biofilms, offers many potential advantages over single-cell growth, including resistance to antimicrobial factors. Here we describe the interaction between the biofilm-promoting components curli fimbriae and cellulose of uropathogenic E. coli and the endogenous antimicrobial defense in the urinary tract.

Cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1 (CNF1) induces an inflammatory response in the urinary tract in vitro but not in vivo.

Cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1 (CNF1) is a well-defined virulence factor of uropathogenic Escherichia coli. We studied the role of CNF1 in uroepithelial cells as well as in children and adults with sporadic and recurrent UTI. Our study suggests that CNF1 may promote bacterial attachment and invasion and can induce an inflammatory response in the urinary tract in vitro but that its role in vivo is possibly minor in comparison with other virulence factors of the uropathogenic E.

The role of megakaryocytes and tissue mast cells in the respiratory distress syndrome of adults.

The pathological role of megakaryocytes has been studied during adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARD) in the formation of intraalveolar oedema, microthrombi and hyaline membranes. The giant cells of the bone marrow are also thought to be involved in the development of peribronchial, perivascular and interalveolar oedemas. Heparin produced by tissue mast cells appears to counteract the clotting disturbances and to promote fibrinolysis in the acute phase of ARD.