Quantification of Bacterial Attachment to Tissue Sections

Abstract

Here we describe a method to test bacterial adhesion to paraffin embedded tissue sections. This method allows examining binding of different bacterial strains, transfected with a fluorescent protein reporter plasmid to various tissues, to better understand different mechanisms such as colonization. This assay provides a more physiological context to bacterial binding, than would have been achieved using adhesion assays to cell lines. The sections can be imaged using fluorescent microscopy and adhesion of various bacterial strains can be quantified and tested, simultaneously.