OmpC and bile tolerance are important for Escherichia coli colonization of the mammalian intestine

Our focus of this study is to determine the gene expression changes in E. coli colonizing the mouse intestine as compared to E. coli grown in minimal medium in vitro. We colonized CD-1 male mice with E. coli MG1655 StrR wild type and extracted the total RNA from mouse cecal mucus. We also extracted E. coli MG1655 StrR RNA from in vitro culture and sequenced and compared to determine the genes important for E. coli colonization of the mammalian intestine. Our results indicate that OmpC is important for E. coli to colonize the mouse intestine as it is upregulated as compared to in vitro culture. OmpF is not important; it is detrimental for E. coli colonization of the mouse intestine and is highly downregulated in the colonized E. coli E. coli MG1655 StrR was fed to CD-1 male mice and on the 9th day, the mice were euthanized, mucus from the cecum was obtained and total RNA was extracted and sequenced. E. coli MG1655 StrR was cultured in MOPS minimal glucose medium, and the total transcriptome of exponential phase culture was sequenced