Seeding Public Goods Is Essential for Maintaining Cooperation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Quorum sensing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa controls the production of costly public goods such as exoproteases. This cooperative behavior is susceptible to social cheating by mutants that do not invest in the exoprotease production but assimilate the amino acids and peptides derived by the hydrolysis of proteins in the extracellular media. In sequential cultures with protein as the sole carbon source, these social cheaters are readily selected and often reach equilibrium with the exoprotease producers. Nevertheless, an excess of cheaters causes the collapse of population growth. In this work, using the reference strain PA14 and a clinical isolate from a burn patient, we demonstrate that the initial amount of public goods (exoprotease) that comes with the inoculum in each sequential culture is essential for maintaining population growth and that eliminating the exoprotease in the inoculum leads to rapid population collapse. Therefore, our results suggest that sequential washes should be combined with public good inhibitors to more effectively combat P. aeruginosa infections.

Apoptosis patterns in experimental Taenia solium and Taenia crassiceps strobilae from golden hamsters.

Apoptosis or programmed cell death (PCD) patterns of two taeniid species, Taenia solium and Taenia crassiceps, were explored in adult tapeworms grown in golden hamsters. Animals were fed either ten viable T. solium cysticerci from naturally infected pigs or from T. crassiceps WFU strain maintained in Balb/c mice. Adult strobilae were recovered from the intestine at different times after infection and either frozen at -70 degrees C or fixed in paraformaldehyde-glutaraldehyde. Frozen sections were processed using the DNA fragmentation fluorescent TUNEL reagents and examined in an epifluorescent microscope. Fixed tissues were processed for light and electron microscopy. Typical apoptotic cells were found in the central core of scolex and strobilar tissues, mainly in the germinal tissue and subtegumentary areas. By the TUNEL technique, cells exhibited the characteristic fluorescent images of condensed nuclear chromatin. By light microscopy of thick sections stained with toluidine blue, we found a number of small rounded cells which had lost their cytoplasmic bridges and had shrunken nuclei with aggregated chromatin, cells which were found interspersed with normal syncytial cells. Similar cell morphology was confirmed by electron microscopy. Stunted viable worms, recovered with longer mature specimens, had very short strobilae and exhibited a large number of apoptotic cells in the germinal neck tissues. The results are consistent with the syncytial nature of these parasites, and strongly suggest that cell proliferation and PCD in these adult cestodes are continuous processes of the germinal tissue and tegumentary cytons.

Taeniid tapeworm responses to in vitro glucose.

Experimental taeniid strobilae from Taenia solium and T. crassiceps (WFU strain) were incubated for 0-72 h in 0, 5 or 20 mM glucose solutions and further exposed for 15 min to the gap junction fluorochrome Lucifer Yellow. Frozen sections were obtained from each worm and observed under an epifluorescent microscope. Worm sections from strobilae incubated with glucose, revealed intense fluorescence in the base of the tegumentary surface, suggesting that this tissue behaves as a gap junction complex. Fluorescence intensity differences between control worms not exposed to glucose and worms incubated with glucose, were highly significant. The results demonstrate that under in vitro conditions, glucose is taken up along the whole strobilar tegument in both taeniid species, suggesting, that although taeniids attached to the duodenum probably take up most of their nutrients directly from the mucosal wall, the capacity for absorbing glucose along the tegumentary surface is always active and may increase the survival capacity of these intestinal worms by promoting glucose absorption at other points in the intestinal lumen.