Anti-adhesive activity of cranberry phenolic compounds and their microbial-derived metabolites against uropathogenic Escherichia coli in bladder epithelial cell cultures

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.-- This article belongs to the Special Issue Phenolics and Polyphenolics 2015.Cranberry consumption has shown prophylactic effects against urinary tract infections (UTI), although the mechanisms involved are not completely understood. In this paper, cranberry phenolic compounds and their potential microbial-derived metabolites (such as simple phenols and benzoic, phenylacetic and phenylpropionic acids) were tested for their capacity to inhibit the adherence of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) ATCC®53503™ to T24 epithelial bladder cells. Catechol, benzoic acid, vanillic acid, phenylacetic acid and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid showed anti-adhesive activity against UPEC in a concentration-dependent manner from 100-500 µM, whereas procyanidin A2, widely reported as an inhibitor of UPEC adherence on uroepithelium, was only statistically significant (p < 0.05) at 500 µM (51.3% inhibition). The results proved for the first time the anti-adhesive activity of some cranberry-derived phenolic metabolites against UPEC in vitro, suggesting that their presence in the urine could reduce bacterial colonization and progression of UTI.This work was funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) (Projects AGL-2010-17499 and AGL2012-40172-C02-01) and the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Project ALIBIRD S2013/ABI-2728), Spain. Adelaida Esteban-Fernández would like to thank the MINECO-FPI program for her research contract.We acknowledge the support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer Reviewe