The emerging pathogen Campylobacter concisus has been isolated from patients with
gastrointestinal diseases; however, it is also present in the gut of healthy individuals. The aim of this study was to compare
IL-8 production in HT-29 cells after
infection with C. concisus from different
gastrointestinal disease phenotypes. Additionally, to investigate whether differentiation of isolates in genomospecies (GS1 and GS2) or presence of the zot gene, encoding the
Zot toxin, affects
IL-8 production. A total of 37 C. concisus isolates from patients with
microscopic colitis (n = 20),
ulcerative colitis (n = 5),
Crohn's disease (n = 5), diarrhoea (n = 2) and from healthy controls (n = 5) were used. Intestinal HT-29 cells were infected and incubated for 24 h. Supernatants were subsequently removed and analysed for
IL-8 by MILLIPLEX. All isolates were able to stimulate
IL-8 production and
IL-8 levels were higher than in non-infected HT-29 cells. No difference was observed between disease phenotypes or GS1 and GS2, whereas presence of the zot gene showed a tendency towards higher
IL-8 production. Further investigations in other inflammatory and physiological models are needed to conclude whether C. concisus strains from different
gastrointestinal disease phenotypes differ in pathogenic potential and play a part in
gastrointestinal disease.