In contrast, in an in vivo

study of bacteriocins employing the same mouse model as described here, did not detect an increased persistence of colicinogenic enteric bacteria [24]. However, in that study persistence was monitored for only 15 days. Our data suggest that over a longer period of time, 112 days in the present study, the benefit of colicinogenicity becomes more apparent (Figure 1), with see more colicin producers maintaining significantly higher densities than their non-colicin producing counterparts. The colicin-based advantage observed in the present in vivo study reflects a similar advantage to colicin Adriamycin production as has been detected in prior in silico and in vitro studies [20]. Our results are even more promising with respect to the advantage gained from colicin production when the sampling method employed here is considered, as fecal-based sampling will generally underestimate

the actual density of the strain in the GI tract [25, 26]. There is one further colicin-based in selleck inhibitor vitro study, which employed the same mouse model described here, but which differed significantly in experimental design. In this latter study the focus was on the interaction (or competition) between colicinogenic and non-colicinogenic strains, while the current study focuses on the ability of colicinogenicity to enhance strain maintenance [12]. This prior colicin competition study revealed that colicin production enhances strain persistence when mice equilibrated with colicin producing strains are co-caged with mice equilibrated with colicin sensitive strains [12]. Thus, although the intent of the

two studies is quite different, both reveal that colicinogenicity has a significant and positive effect on the ability of a strain to be maintained in the GI tract of a streptomycin-treated mouse. Many studies in humans and livestock have shown that probiotic bacteria have the ability to re-establish an indigenous microflora after perturbations of the normal intestinal flora [27–31]. Probiotic bacteria provide this health benefit in Tolmetin many ways and the production of toxins, in particular bacteriocins, was proposed as a leading candidate in this process [21]. E. coli strain Nissle 1917, a producer of microcins H47 and M [32], is a well characterized probiont in humans and livestock [3, 5, 33, 8]. This strain was found to be effective in treating chronic inflammatory bowel disease [33] and in inhibiting the adhesion of enteric pathogens to the GI epithelial cells of infants [5]. E. coli strain H22 inhibits the invasion of the enetric pathogen Shigella flexneri in germ-free mice, probably due to the production of microcin C7 [34], colicins E1 and Ib, as well as aerobin and an unidentified phage [4]. In order for a probiotic strain to exert its beneficial effect in the GI tract, it is essential for the cells to become established.