Articles

Genetic affinities of Helicobacter pylori isolates from ethnic Arabs in Kuwait

Helicobacter pylori is one of the most genetically diverse of bacterial species, and since the 5'-end of cagA gene and the middle allele of vacA gene of H. pylori from different populations exhibit considerable p...

Authors: M John Albert, Hanan M Al-Akbal, Rita Dhar, De Ronita and Asish K Mukhopadhyay

Probiotic therapy - recruiting old friends to fight new foes

Against a backdrop of increasing antibiotic resistance, and the emergence of new and evolving pathogens, clinicians are increasingly forced to consider alternative therapies - probiotics are one such alternative.

Authors: Roy D Sleator

Emerging trends in the etiology of enteric pathogens as evidenced from an active surveillance of hospitalized diarrhoeal patients in Kolkata, India

This study was conducted to determine the etiology of diarrhoea in a hospital setting in Kolkata. Active surveillance was conducted for 2 years on two random days per week by enrolling every fifth diarrhoeal p...

Authors: Gopinath Balakrish Nair, Thandavarayan Ramamurthy, Mihir Kumar Bhattacharya, Triveni Krishnan, Sandipan Ganguly, Dhira Rani Saha, Krishnan Rajendran, Byomkesh Manna, Mrinmoy Ghosh, Keinosuke Okamoto and Yoshifumi Takeda

Current insights in to the pathophysiology of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) represents a functional disorder of gastrointestinal tract without the presence of an anatomic defect, in which abdominal pain is relieved with defecation and is associated with ...

Authors: Theodoros Karantanos, Theofano Markoutsaki, Maria Gazouli, Nicholas P Anagnou and Dimitrios G Karamanolis

Helicobacter pylori: a poor man's gut pathogen?

Helicobacter pylori is one of the human pathogens with highest prevalence around the world; yet, its principal mode of transmission remains largely unknown. The role of H. pylori in gastric disease and cancer has...

Authors: Mohammed Mahdy Khalifa, Radwa Raed Sharaf and Ramy Karam Aziz

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis as a trigger of type-1 diabetes: destination Sardinia, or beyond?

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a multifactorial autoimmune disease in which the insulin producing β cell population is destroyed by the infiltrated T lymphocytes. Even though the exact cause of T1DM is yet...

Authors: Pittu Sandhya Rani, Leonardo A Sechi and Niyaz Ahmed

A rhodanine agent active against non-replicating intracellular Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis

Antibiotic therapy targeting chronic mycobacterial disease is often ineffective due to problems with the emergence of drug resistance and non-replicating persistent intracellular antibiotic resistant phenotype...

Authors: Tim J Bull, Richard Linedale, Jason Hinds and John Hermon-Taylor

Helicobacter pylori - a seasoned pathogen by any other name

Helicobacter pylori is a well known inhabitant of human stomach which is linked to peptic ulcer disease and gastric adenocarcinoma. It was recently shown in several studies that H. pylori can be harnessed as a su...

Authors: Niyaz Ahmed, Shivendra Tenguria and Nishant Nandanwar

Penicillin-binding Proteins (PBP) and Lmo0441 (a PBP-like protein) play a role in Beta-lactam sensitivity of Listeria monocytogenes

While seven penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) or PBP-like proteins have been identified either by radiolabelled penicillin binding studies or genomic analysis, only PBP3 has been considered of interest for Be...

Authors: Sébastien Van de Velde, Stéphane Carryn, Françoise Van Bambeke, Colin Hill, Paul M Tulkens and Roy D Sleator

Adhesive threads of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli

The ability to adhere to host surfaces is by far the most vital step in the successful colonization by microbial pathogens. Colonization begins with the attachment of the bacterium to receptors expressed by ce...

Authors: Esther-Maria Antão, Lothar H Wieler and Christa Ewers

A hundred-year-old insight into the gut microbiome!

As the National Institutes of Health-funded Human Microbiome Project enters its second phase, and as a major part of this project focuses on the human gut microbiome and its effects on human health, it might h...

Authors: Ramy Karam Aziz

Blood profile holds clues to role of infection in a premonitory state for idiopathic parkinsonism and of gastrointestinal infection in established disease

The two-stage neuroinflammatory process, containment and progression, proposed to underlie neurodegeneration may predicate on systemic inflammation arising from the gastrointestinal tract. Helicobacter infection ...

Authors: André Charlett, R John Dobbs, Sylvia M Dobbs, Clive Weller, Mohammad AA Ibrahim, Tracy Dew, Roy Sherwood, Norman L Oxlade, J Malcolm Plant, James Bowthorpe, Andrew J Lawson, Alan Curry, Dale W Peterson and Ingvar T Bjarnason

Probiotics and gastrointestinal disease: successes, problems and future prospects

Gastrointestinal disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide each year. Treatment of chronic inflammatory gastrointestinal conditions such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease is difficu...

Authors: Eamonn P Culligan, Colin Hill and Roy D Sleator

Antimicrobial resistances do not affect colonization parameters of intestinal E. coli in a small piglet group

Although antimicrobial resistance and persistence of resistant bacteria in humans and animals are major health concerns worldwide, the impact of antimicrobial resistance on bacterial intestinal colonization in...

Authors: Peter Schierack, Kristina Kadlec, Sebastian Guenther, Matthias Filter, Stefan Schwarz, Christa Ewers and Lothar H Wieler

Possible transmission of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis through potable water: lessons from an urban cluster of Crohn's disease

A "cluster" of patients refers to the geographic proximity of unrelated patients with the same disease and suggests a common environmental cause for that disease. Clusters of patients with Crohn's disease have...

Authors: Ellen S Pierce

The case for biocentric microbiology

Microbiology is a relatively modern scientific discipline intended to objectively study microorganisms, including pathogens and nonpathogens. However, since its birth, this science has been negatively affected...

Authors: Ramy Karam Aziz

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, Crohn's disease and the Doomsday scenario

Johne's disease is chronic inflammation of the intestine caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis. Infection and disease are mainly in domestic livestock but can affect many species including pri...

Authors: John Hermon-Taylor

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium adhesion and cytotoxicity during epithelial cell stress is reduced by Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG

Physiological stressors may alter susceptibility of the host intestinal epithelium to infection by enteric pathogens. In the current study, cytotoxic effect, adhesion and invasion of Salmonella enterica serovar T...

Authors: Kristin M Burkholder and Arun K Bhunia

Characterisation of Campylobacter jejuni genes potentially involved in phosphonate degradation

Potential biological roles of the Campylobacter jejuni genes cj0641, cj0774c and cj1663 were investigated. The proteins encoded by these genes showed sequence similarities to the phosphonate utilisation PhnH, K a...

Authors: Lauren E Hartley, Nadeem O Kaakoush, Justin L Ford, Victoria Korolik and George L Mendz

Disease association with two Helicobacter pylori duplicate outer membrane protein genes, homB and homA

homB encodes a Helicobacter pylori outer membrane protein. This gene was previously associated with peptic ulcer disease (PUD) and was shown to induce activation of interleukin-8 secretion in vitro, as well as co...

Authors: Monica Oleastro, Rita Cordeiro, Yoshio Yamaoka, Dulciene Queiroz, Francis Mégraud, Lurdes Monteiro and Armelle Ménard

Exposure to bile influences biofilm formation by Listeria monocytogenes

In the present study we demonstrate that the initial attachment of Listeria monocytogenes cells to plastic surfaces was significantly increased by growth in the presence of bile. Improved biofilm formation was co...

Authors: Máire Begley, Colm Kerr and Colin Hill

Spirochaetes as intestinal pathogens: Lessons from a Brachyspira genome

Anaerobic spirochaetes of the genus Brachyspira have long been known as important gut pathogens of pigs, but increasingly they are recognised as causing disease in birds and other animal species, including human ...

Authors: David J Hampson and Niyaz Ahmed

An oral recombinant Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium mutant elicits systemic antigen-specific CD8+ T cell cytokine responses in mice

The induction of antigen-specific CD8+ T cell cytokine responses against an attenuated, oral recombinant Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium vaccine expressing a green fluorescent protein (GFP) model antigen ...

Authors: Nyasha Chin'ombe, William R Bourn, Anna-Lise Williamson and Enid G Shephard

Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus B-30892 can inhibit cytotoxic effects and adhesion of pathogenic Clostridium difficile to Caco-2 cells

Probiotic microorganisms are receiving increasing interest for use in the prevention, treatment, or dietary management of certain diseases, including antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD). Clostridium difficile is...

Authors: Pratik Banerjee, Glenn J Merkel and Arun K Bhunia

Thinking beyond the colon-small bowel Involvement in clostridium difficile infection

Small intestinal Clostridium difficile seems to be increasing in incidence. The spectrum of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has definitely expanded with small bowel involvement. They are more frequently rep...

Authors: Udayakumar Navaneethan and Ralph A Giannella

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study of a probiotic in emotional symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is complex illness of unknown etiology. Among the broad range of symptoms, many patients report disturbances in the emotional realm, the most frequent of which is anxiety. Resear...

Authors: A Venket Rao, Alison C Bested, Tracey M Beaulne, Martin A Katzman, Christina Iorio, John M Berardi and Alan C Logan

The prevalence of the duodenal ulcer promoting gene (dupA) in Helicobacter pylori isolates varies by ethnic group and is not universally associated with disease development: a case-control study

The putative H. pylori pathogenicity-associated factor dupA has been associated with IL-8 induction in vitro, and duodenal ulcer (DU) and gastric cancer (GC) development in certain populations, but this associati...

Authors: Heather-Marie A Schmidt, Sönke Andres, Nadeem O Kaakoush, Lars Engstrand, Lena Eriksson, Khean-Lee Goh, Kwong Ming Fock, Ida Hilmi, Subbiah Dhamodaran, David Forman and Hazel Mitchell

Monensin causes dose dependent inhibition of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis in radiometric culture

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) causes a chronic wasting diarrheal disease in ruminants called Johne's disease, that is evocative of human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Agents used to tr...

Authors: Robert J Greenstein, Liya Su, Robert H Whitlock and Sheldon T Brown

Gut pathogens: invaders and turncoats in a complex cosmos

Intestinal infections and diarrhoeal diseases of humans are under-reported yet each account worldwide for more deaths than those from Tuberculosis. For external gut pathogens to do this they have to penetrate,...

Authors: John Hermon-Taylor

Campylobacter jejuni induces transcellular translocation of commensal bacteria via lipid rafts

Campylobacter enteritis represents a risk factor for the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) via unknown mechanisms. As IBD patients exhibit inflammatory responses to their commensal intestinal microf...

Authors: Lisa D Kalischuk, G Douglas Inglis and Andre G Buret

Gut Pathogens: enteric health at the interface of changing microbiology

Authors: Niyaz Ahmed, Leonardo A Sechi, Francis Megraud and Seyed E Hasnain