Growth phase, cellular hydrophobicity, and adhesion in vitro of lactobacilli colonizing the keratinizing gastric epithelium in the mouse.

Lactobacillus strains of numerous species isolated from several animal sources exhibited cellular hydrophobicities that differed from those expected on the basis of their abilities to colonize the keratinizing stratified squamous epithelium in the mouse stomach. Cells of Lactobacillus fermentum 100-33, grown to either exponential or stationary phase, were strongly hydrophilic. By contrast, cells of L. fermentum RI and six transformant derivatives of strain RI and 100-33, strains DM101 through DM106, were hydrophobic to various degrees in either growth phase. Most of them were less hydrophobic, however, when in the stationary phase than in the exponential phase. Cells of strains RI and 100-33 in the exponential phase adhered in the same number in vitro to disks of keratinized mouse gastric mucosa. By contrast, when in stationary phase, strain RI and two transformants, DM103 and DM104, adhered to the surface in higher numbers than 100-33. In contrast to their cellular progenitor, 100-33, the transformant strains share with their DNA donor, RI, the capacity to colonize the keratinizing gastric epithelium in mice. These findings indicate that lactobacilli able to colonize the surface of the keratinocytes in the murine stomach can adhere to that surface by either hydrophilic or hydrophobic molecules.