Invasiveness of Salmonella serotypes Typhimurium, Choleraesuis and Dublin for rabbit terminal ileum in vitro.

Ten recent clinical isolates of Salmonella serotype Typhimurium from man that were tested for their invasiveness in rabbit ileal explants in vitro, were compared with Typhimurium strain TML, a well-characterised invasive strain isolated from a case of human gastro-enteritis. Nine of the 10 strains showed invasiveness that was comparable to that of strain TML. One isolate (GM3) was apparently substantially less invasive; electron microscopy showed this strain to be histotoxic - the probable reason for its reduced recovery from ileal mucosa and thus apparent 'low' invasiveness. Salmonella serotype Choleraesuis strain A50, isolated from a case of systemic salmonellosis in pigs, and serotype Dublin strain 3246, isolated from a case of systemic salmonellosis in calves, were also examined. Dublin strain 3246, when grown at 37 degrees C and used immediately in the invasion assay, damaged the mucosa in a manner similar to that of Typhimurium strain GM3, whereas Dublin strain 3246 grown at 37 degrees C and stored overnight at 4 degrees C did not. This was reflected in an apparently lower invasiveness of freshly grown organisms compared with that of organisms stored at 4 degrees C. In contrast, the histotoxicity of Typhimurium strain GM3 was not affected by storage at 4 degrees C. When stored at 4 degrees C, the levels of invasiveness of Choleraesuis strain A50 and Dublin strain 3246 were not significantly different from each other or from Typhimurium strain TML.

Interaction of Salmonella choleraesuis, Salmonella dublin and Salmonella typhimurium with porcine and bovine terminal ileum in vivo.

Quantitative experiments on the interaction of Salmonella choleraesuis and Salmonella dublin with porcine and bovine intestinal epithelia yielded no evidence to suggest that host restriction of S. choleraesuis and S. dublin for pigs and calves respectively could be explained in terms of the patterns of intestinal invasion observed in ligated ileal loops in vivo, at 3 h after challenge. No evidence was found to support the idea that Peyer's patches, or specifically M cells, are the major route of entry for these serotypes in vivo. Three hours after loop inoculation, each serotype was recovered in comparable numbers from either absorptive or Peyer's patch mucosae present in the same ileal loop, indicating that both types of tissue are involved in the early stages of the enteropathogenic process induced by both serotypes. More detailed transmission electron microscopic (TEM) analyses of follicle-associated epithelia (FAE) challenged with S. choleraesuis showed that in the same region of FAE, organisms invaded both M cells and enterocytes directly; comparable detailed TEM studies with S. dublin could not be carried out because of the tissue-destructive properties of this serotype. S. dublin was clearly more histotoxic than S. choleraesuis as had previously been found in rabbits: this difference is almost certainly due to a tissue-damaging toxin which is neither host nor gut-tissue specific. The tissue-destructive potential of S. dublin has profound implications for the measurement of and the assignment of significance to the invasiveness of S. dublin. S. dublin was nearly always seen entering gut cells in micro-colonies whereas S. choleraesuis entered mainly as single organisms or small groups of two or three.