Biofilm formation is generally recognized as a bacterial defense mechanism against environmental threats, including antibiotics, bacteriophages, and leukocytes of the human immune system. Here, we show that for the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, biofilm formation is not only a protective trait but also an aggressive trait to collectively predate different immune cells. We find that V. cholerae forms biofilms on the eukaryotic cell surface using an extracellular matrix comprising primarily mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin pili, toxin-coregulated pili, and the secreted colonization factor TcpF, which differs from the matrix composition of biofilms on other surfaces. These biofilms encase immune cells and establish a high local concentration of a secreted hemolysin to kill the immune cells before the biofilms disperse in a c-di-GMP-dependent manner. Together, these results uncover how bacteria employ biofilm formation as a multicellular strategy to invert the typical relationship between human immune cells as the hunters and bacteria as the hunted.

生物膜的形成通常被认为是细菌防御环境威胁的机制，包括抗生素、噬菌体和人类免疫系统的白细胞。在这里，我们表明，对于人类病原体霍乱弧菌来说，生物膜形成不仅是一种保护性特征，也是一种集体捕食不同免疫细胞的攻击性特征。我们发现霍乱弧菌使用细胞外基质在真核细胞表面形成生物膜，该细胞外基质主要包括甘露糖敏感的血凝素菌毛、毒素共调节菌毛和分泌的定植因子TcpF，其与其他表面上生物膜的基质组成不同。这些生物膜包裹免疫细胞，并在生物膜以 c-di-GMP 依赖性方式分散之前建立高局部浓度的分泌型溶血素以杀死免疫细胞。总之，这些结果揭示了细菌如何利用生物膜形成作为多细胞策略，以反转作为猎人的人类免疫细胞和作为猎物的细菌之间的典型关系。