Generation of recombinant bioluminescent Escherichia coli for quantitative determination of bacterial adhesion

Bacterial adhesion to urinary catheter was evaluated by measuring the light emitted from a recombinant bioluminescent glycocalyx producer escherichia coli strain. generation of the bioluminescent strain was carried out by transforming the bacterial cells with pucp18-gfp plasmid that contains a green fluorescence gene. light emission measurement was closely correlated with the number of the adherent cells,giving a detectable signal from 1.2 x 102 cells. the efficiency of this assay was confirmed by testing the antiadherent effect of subinhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin with the aid of a model for in-vitro catheter colonization. there was no significant difference in the percentage reduction of adherent cells obtained by both light emission measurement and viable cell count techniques.