Sporulation is dispensable for the vegetable-associated life cycle of the human pathogen Bacillus cereus

Abstract

Bacillus cereus is a common food-borne pathogen that is responsible for important outbreaks of food poisoning in humans. Diseases caused by B. cereus usually exhibit two major symptoms, emetic or diarrheic, depending on the toxins produced. It is assumed that after the ingestion of contaminated vegetables or processed food, spores of enterotoxigenic B. cereus reach the intestine, where they germinate and produce the enterotoxins that are responsible for food poisoning. In our study, we observed that sporulation is required for the survival of B. cereus in leaves but is dispensable in ready-to-eat vegetables, such as endives. We demonstrate that vegetative cells of B. cereus that are originally impaired in sporulation but not biofilm formation are able to reach the intestine and cause severe disorders in a murine model. We propose that loss of part of the sporulation programme and reinforcement of structural factors related to adhesion, biofilm formation and pathogenic interaction with the host are adaptive traits of B. cereus with a life cycle primarily related to human hosts. Furthermore, our findings emphasise that the number of food poisoning cases associated with B. cereus is underestimated and suggest the need to revise the detection protocols, which are based primarily on spores and toxins.