industrially important microorganisms used for the production of various fermented foods. Recently, probiotic lactic acid bacteria defined as “living microorganisms that benefit the health of the host by conditioning the intestinal environment” have attracted the attention of many scientists, and began to be applied in the dairy industry. For example, the intake of fermented milk containing pro...

Bacterial growth and the production of ammonia from urea and by deamination of peptone has been examined at various pHs in both conventional static bacterial cultures and in a continuous cultivation system. Growth occurred on primary testing of 93 out of 100 strains of aerobic Gram-negative bacteria at pH 5, and 48 out of 50 strains of Esch. coli at pH 4.6. Hydrolysis of urea by Proteus mirabil...

Throughout evolution, both helminths and bacteria have inhabited our intestines. As intestinal helminths and bacteria inhabit the same environmental niche, it is likely that these organisms interact with, and impact on, each other. In addition, intestinal helminths are well known to alter intestinal physiology, permeability, mucous secretion and the production of antimicrobial peptides - all of...

Virulent microorganisms, such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses, are recognized by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), including toll-like receptors (TLRs) and nucleotide-binding oligomerization-domain proteins (NODs), and induce inflammatory responses in mammalian hosts. Conversely, commensal bacteria and probiotics, which symbiotically confer health benefits on the host organisms, can lodg...

Mutations in the Nod2 gene are among the strongest genetic risk factors in the pathogenesis of ileal Crohn's disease, but the exact contributions of Nod2 to intestinal mucosal homeostasis are not understood. Here we show that Nod2 plays an essential role in controlling commensal bacterial flora in the intestine. Analysis of intestinal bacteria from the terminal ilea of Nod2-deficient mice showe...

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Convincing evidence from both animal models and the study of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) implicates the intestinal microflora in the initiation and maintenance of the inflammatory processes in this condition. Despite this, no specific pathogen has been identified as causal and the disease is widely believed to occur as the result of a genetically determined, but abnormal immune respon...

An improved understanding of how intestinal bacteria cause disease has become increasingly important because of the emergence of new enteric pathogens, increasing threats of drug resistance, and a growing awareness of their importance in malnutrition and diarrhea. Reviewed here are the varied ways that intestinal bacteria cause disease, which provide fundamental lessons about microbial pathogen...

probiotics are live cultures of microbes; often lactic acid bacteria, but also some other species, which when fed to animals, improve their health and growth through altering the intestinal microbial balance. in the present research, healthy chickens’ gastrointestinal (gi) tracts were screened for the presence of lactic acid bacteria with probiotic properties. the probiotic properties of the is...