Level of fimbriation alters the adhesion of Escherichia coli bacteria to interfaces

This dataset contains both raw and derived data for a study of the effects of overexpression of type 1 fimbriae by the bacterium Escherichia coli on its ability to adhere to solid (biotic and abiotic) and oil/water interfaces. The goal of this study was to understand how the expression level of a common surface adhesin, type 1 fimbriae (implicated in adhesion to oil/water interfaces in many marine species as well as in virulence for pathogenic bacterial strains), affected its ability to adhere to interfaces. A plasmid that enables inducible and tunable expression of E. coli MG1655 type 1 fimbriae was transformed into a fimbriae-deficient mutant strain MG1655ΔfimA to generate strain MG1655ΔfimA+pPCC1401. Changes in the level of fimbriation of the bacteria were obtained by changing the concentration of the inducer isopropyl \beta-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). The data were generated in three laboratories at the University of Houston from November 2015 to May 2017, and include results from quantitative real-time PCR (used to assess the level of fimH gene expression); from zeta potential and surface energy measurements (used to assess the physicochemical properties of the bacteria); from a modified yeast agglutination assay (used to assess adhesion to biotic solid surfaces); from a specific biofilm formation assay (used to assess adhesion to abiotic solid surfaces); and from a microbial adhesion to hydrocarbons assay (used to assess adhesion to oil/water interfaces, such as those found in ocean oil spills). Assay results are reported for the wild type MG1655 (which bore few fimbriae), for the fimbrial-deficient MG1655ΔfimA strain (which bore no fimbriae), and for the tunably inducible strain MG1655ΔfimA+pPCC1401 (whose level of fimbriation could be tuned by varying [IPTG]).