Overview of the Effect of Citrobacter rodentium Infection on Host Metabolism and the Microbiota

Citrobacter rodentium is a natural enteric mouse pathogen that models human intestinal diseases, such as pathogenic E. coli infections, ulcerative colitis, and colon cancer. Upon reaching the monolayer of intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) lining the gut, a complex web of interactions between the host, the pathogen, and the microbiota ensues. A number of studies revealed surprisingly rapid changes in IEC bioenergetics upon infection, involving a switch from oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis, leading to mucosal oxygenation and subsequent changes in microbiota composition. Microbiome studies have revealed a bloom in Enterobacteriaceae during C. rodentium infection in both resistant (i.e., C57BL/6) and susceptible (i.e., C3H/HeN) strains of mice concomitant with a depletion of butyrate-producing Clostridia. The emerging understanding that dysbiosis of cholesterol metabolism is induced by enteric infection further confirms the pivotal role immunometabolism plays in disease outcome. Inversely, the host and microbiota also impact upon the progression of infection, from the susceptibility of the distal colon to C. rodentium colonization to clearance of the pathogen, both via opsonization from the host adaptive immune system and out competition by the resident microbiota. Further complicating this compendium of interactions, C. rodentium exploits microbiota metabolites to fine-tune virulence gene expression and promote colonization. This chapter summarizes the current knowledge of the myriad of pathogen–host–microbiota interactions that occur during the progression of C. rodentium infection in mice and the broader implications of these findings on our understanding of enteric disease.