Strain 43816 was detected in lungs, with similar recovery at 48 and 72 h post-infection. Systemic infection was delayed until 72 h post-infection. Strain 1850 was equally recovered from lungs at 48 and 72 h post-infection. Spleen and liver colonization were hardly observed at any time. As a control, we determined the bacterial loads in lung, liver and spleen of the CPS mutant strain 52K10. As reported previously [16], this mutant was attenuated. Viable counts recovered from lung were significantly lower than those for capsulated strains at 48 and 72 h post-infection and bacteria could not be recovered from liver or spleen at any time post-infection.

Figure 4 Mouse pneumonia model for K. pneumoniae strains. Intranasal infections by K. pneumoniae strains 52145, 43816, see more 1850 and 52K10. Mice were infected with 105 c.f.u. and sacrificed 48 h (A) or 72 h (B) post-infection. Lung, spleen and liver were dissected, weighed, homogenized and plated on LB agar. Data shown are from five infected mice per time point. Mean values are plotted. Therefore, although cytotoxicity is likely to be associated with virulence, strains expressing

different capsule levels were not equally virulent, suggesting that additional bacterial factors could be involved in virulence, or that the cytotoxic effect is necessary, but not sufficient, for virulence. Discussion In this study, we show that K. pneumoniae triggers a cytotoxic effect upon infection of human lung epithelial cells. This process requires the presence of capsulated

live bacteria VX-689 concentration through the time of infection. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies reporting that K. pneumoniae might exert a cytotoxic effect on airway epithelial cells. Our results could point to the underlying mechanism behind the early findings reported by Straus et al., [5, 24] which indicated that K. pneumoniae Selleckchem C59 wnt expressing CPS induces extensive lung tissue damage. A number of bacterial pathogens induce cytotoxicity in eukaryotic cells, which is frequently dependent on an active type III secretion system (T3SS). For example, enteropathogenic Escherichia coli induces detachment of infected epithelial cells from the substratum and injects the T3SS effector Cif into cells, which induces a cytopathic effect [25, 26]. Bordetella bronchiseptica’s Casein kinase 1 necrotic effect on epithelial cells is dependent on the T3SS effector BopB [27], and also Pseudomonas aeruginosa promotes T3SS-dependent cytotoxicity towards eukaryotic cells [28, 29]. Yet, K. pneumoniae-induced cytotoxicity does not seem to be related to a T3SS, given that in silico analysis of the so far sequenced K. pneumoniae genomes does not identify any T3SS components. Furthermore, PCR analysis using degenerated primers to amplify lcrD homologues present in all known T3SS were negative in all our Klebsiella strains. Recently, it has been shown that P. aeruginosa and enterotoxigenic E.