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Contribution Of Enterococcus Faecalis To Urinary Tract Infection, Samantha Ann Whiteside

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this thesis was to increase understanding of enterococcal UTI, in particular, the response of Enterococcus to antibiotic prophylaxis in vitro and in vivo and enterococcal communication with the bladder.

We studied the in vitro effects of trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) and nitrofurantoin, two of the antibiotic treatments used most commonly in the management of both urinary tract infection (UTI) and recurrent UTI (RUTI), on Enterococcus faecalis attachment to urothelial cells. In doing so, we documented nitrofurantoin-induced increases in bacterial attachment at growth inhibitory concentrations of nitrofurantoin, but not TMP/SMX. This increased virulence did not correlate with increased expression of …