Articles

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