A toxin(s) has been demonstrated in the stools of two patients with antibiotic-associated colitis. This toxin(s) was heat-labile, was rapidly lethal for hamsters, increased vascular permeability in rabbit skin, and was cytotoxic for cells in tissue-culture. It was neutralised by Clostridium sordellii antitoxin but not by antitoxins prepared against other clostridia; Escherichia coli, and Vibrio...

All bacteria form persisters, cells that are multidrug tolerant and therefore able to survive antibiotic treatment. Due to the low frequencies of persisters in growing bacterial cultures and the complex underlying molecular mechanisms, the phenomenon has been challenging to study. However, recent technological advances in microfluidics and reporter genes have improved this scenario. Here, we su...

Agrococcus baldri strain Marseille-P2731 was isolated from a Siberian permafrost specimen dated around 10 million years. The 3,021,022-bp genome of strain Marseille-P2731, with a 71.82% G+C content, includes 2,844 protein-coding genes, 72 toxin/antitoxin modules, nine bacteriocin-encoding genes, and 1,266 genes associated with mobilome.

We describe the first case of food-borne botulism seen in New Zealand for 30 years. Botulism is an important diagnosis to consider in a patient with rapidly progressive descending paralysis and normal sensorium. Early recognition, timely institution of intensive care support and administration of botulism antitoxin are the most important aspects of management.

One mechanism by which bacteria survive environmental stress is through the formation of bacterial persisters, a sub-population of genetically identical quiescent cells that exhibit multidrug tolerance and are highly enriched in bacterial toxins. Recently, the Escherichia coli gene mqsR (b3022) was identified as the gene most highly upregulated in persisters. Here, we report multiple individual...

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) loci are common in archaea and prokaryotes and allow cells to rapidly adapt to changing environmental conditions through release of active regulators of metabolism. Many toxins are endonucleases that target cellular mRNA and tRNAs, while the antitoxins tightly wrap around the toxins to inhibit them under normal circumstances. The antitoxins also bind to operators in the pro...

Complete toxigenicity studies were performed on 341 strains of Campylobacter spp., including 23 nonhuman isolates. Toxin profiles based on both cytotonic and cytotoxic factors were determined after analyzing responses in Vero, HeLa, CHO and Y-1 cells. Suckling mouse assays were consistently negative for all culture filtrates tested. Toxin-producing strains were frequently encountered among both...

The susceptibility of exocrine and serum immunoglobulins and antibodies to proteolytic degradation was assessed. Colostral and duodenal fluid exocrine 11S IgA, monomeric serum IgA, and IgG were digested with trypsin, chymotrypsin, or duodenal fluid. Exocrine IgA was more resistant to digestion than were the serum immunoglobulins. Under conditions of the experiments, most of colostral IgA retain...

The immunological control mechanism against cholera toxin (CT) in the small intestine of rats was studied in vivo. CT binding to intestinal receptors was determined by injected radiolabeled CT into the loops of rat small intestine and subsequently separating purified microvillus membranes from mucosal scrapings of those loops. substantial radioactivity (10(5) cpm/mg of microvillus protein) was ...

Electrophoresis on a starch-supporting medium was used to fractionate sera containing human diphtheria antitoxin of the following varieties (a) precipitating antitoxin, (b) non-precipitating skin-sensitizing antitoxin, and (c) mixtures containing precipitating and skin-sensitizing antitoxins. Aliquots of the protein fractions thus separated were tested for activity using the rabbit toxin neutra...