Recent Developments in Bacterial Adhesion to Animal Cells

Abstract

Although at the beginning of this century it was found that bacteria interact with animal cells by causing hemagglutination of erythrocytes (Guyot, 1908), systematic research on bacterial adhesion and hemagglutination reactions started only in the 1950s with the work of Duguid (Duguid et al., 1955). Extensive and uninterrupted studies by many investigators on bacterial adhesion to animal cells started only about two decades ago. These extensive studies may be divided roughly, with some overlap, into three 7-year periods. In addition to the numerous proceedings from symposia held intermittently during these periods, the emerging studies have been summarized in a number of books and reviews. The studies included in the first 7-year period and published up to 1978 are characterized largely by establishment of the role of bacterial adhesion in the infectious process and the specificity of the bacteria—animal cell interactions, but only a few adhesins were defined. The most important studies published during that period have been discussed in the book on bacterial adhesion edited by the late Ed Beachey (Beachey, 1980) and in a review by the same author (Beachey, 1981) as well as in other reviews (Jones, 1977; Gibbons, 1977; Ofek et al., 1978; Duguid et al., 1979; Ofek and Beachey, 1980). Studies included in the second 7-year period and published between 1979 and 1985 continued to assess the role of adhesion in vivo, but focussed on identifying the various bacterial adhesins and their receptor specificities. During this period researchers also began the cloning of the adhesin gene clusters involved in expression and regulation of the adhesins, especially those of Escherichia coli and Neisseria gonorrhoeae.