{"doi":"10.1371/journal.ppat.1012758","title":"The gut microbiota-independent virulence of noninvasive bacterial pathogen Citrobacter rodentium","abstract":"Attaching and effacing (A/E) bacterial pathogens consist of human pathogens enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, enterohemorrhagic E. coli and their murine equivalent Citrobacter rodentium (CR). Emerging evidence suggests that the complex pathogen-microbiota-host interactions are critical in conferring A/E pathogen infection-induced severe symptoms and lethality in immunocompromised hosts; however, the precise underlying mechanisms remain enigmatic. Here we report that CR infection causes severe colitis and mortality in interleukin 22 knockout (Il22-/-) and Rag1 knockout (Rag1-/-) mice under germ-free (GF) conditions. In a gut microbiota-independent manner, CR colonizes in GF Il22-/- and Rag1-/- animals, triggers colonic epithelial tissue damage and systemic dissemination of CR, and results in lethal infections. Pretreatment with cefoxitin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, exacerbates CR-induced colitis and lethality in specific-pathogen-free (SPF) Il22-/- and Rag1-/- mice. Together our results reveal that CR possesses a gut microbiota-independent virulence, which is better illustrated during infections in immunocompromised hosts associated with severe outcomes.","journal":"PLoS Pathogens","year":2024,"id":478088,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9578,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":924734,"name":"Dongqing Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-8388-2330","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1316966,"name":"Songwei Guo","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":963315,"name":"Shuyu Wang","orcid":"0009-0008-2515-3499","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":658446,"name":"Hua Ding","orcid":"0000-0003-0289-8224","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1316967,"name":"Catherine Siu","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":323342,"name":"Fengyi Wan","orcid":"0000-0001-9216-9767","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1202457,"name":"Yue Liu","orcid":"0000-0003-1579-6278","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":31,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:42.155024Z","pmid":"39630719","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}