Many bacterial species are responsible for sporadic cases and outbreaks of foodborne intoxication and infection. The foodborne diseases are classified on the basis of the pathogenetic mechanisms involved into four categories: performed toxin, enterotoxin formed in the colonized small intestine, mucosal invasion (enterocolitis) and mucosal invasion with bacteremia. Invasive and toxigenic strains...

We have constructed a plasmid containing the gene for production of the B subunit of the heat-labile enterotoxin (LT-B) from a human isolate of Escherichia coli, strain H10407. The 0.8-kilobase gene fragment encoding synthesis of LT-B was cloned onto plasmid pBR322 after sequential digestion of the enterotoxin plasmid of strain H10407 with restriction endonucleases PstI and HindIII. LT-B was is...

Heat-labile enterotoxin subunit B (LTB) is a non-catalytic protein from a pentameric subunit of Escherichia coli. Based on its function of binding specifically to ganglioside GM1 on the surface of cells, a novel nanoparticle (NP) composed of a mixture of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and LTB was designed for targeted delivery of 5-fluorouracil to tumor cells. BSA-LTB NPs were characterized by dete...

Aeromonas hydrophila is an opportunistic pathogen of a variety of aquatic animals that displays extreme diversity in drug resistance, phenotypes, virulence genes, and virulence. In this study, eight pathogenic A. hydrophila strains were isolated from diseased Amur sturgeons and investigated for their sensitivity to select antibiotics, their phenotype, virulence genes, and virulence. According t...

Escherichia coli SA53 produces a new enterotoxin that has a biological activity similar to that of E. coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) but is not neutralized by antiserum against LT or cholera enterotoxin. Strain SA53 contained two plasmids, pRB1 (69.2 +/- 4.3 megadaltons) and pRB2 (57.6 +/- 5.3 megadaltons). Studies were undertaken to determine whether either plasmid was required for producti...