A multi-year study on the role of E. coli bacteria in Crohn’s disease finds that intestinal inflammation releases chemicals that feed the growth of the bacteria and promote their ability to cause inflammation.
A particular type of E. coli, called adherent and invasive E. coli (AIEC), which attaches to and invades intestinal epithelial cells and replicates in defensive white blood cells (macrophages), has been isolated from 21 to 63 per cent of patients with ileal Crohn’s disease (which affects the last tract of the small intestine), leading researchers to suspect that AIEC plays a key role in the disease process.
- In this study, the research team characterised the ileal microbiome, chemical environment and culturable bacteria together with the genetic predisposition of patients with and without Crohn’s disease.
- Researchers have determined that inflammation creates a chemical environment that is enriched in a number of compounds (called metabolites), in particular phospholipids and amino acids, which Crohn’s-associated E.coli can selectively utilise for growth, energy, stress resistance and movement to the gut lining
They subsequently determined that ethanolamine associated with phospholipids and glutamine accentuated the aggressive behaviour of AIEC in cultured cells
Previous studies have identified that people with ileal Crohn’s disease have defects in genes that impair the ability of macrophages to kill AIEC. Invasive adherent E.coli is indeed resistant and its ability to survive in the inflamed gut, where other bacteria die, may even allow it to thrive within the macrophages of a Crohn’s susceptible individual
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