Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) infections are a significant cause of diarrheal disease and infant mortality in developing countries. Studies of ETEC pathogenesis relevant to vaccine development have been greatly hampered by the lack of a suitable small-animal model of infection with human ETEC strains. Here, we demonstrate that adult immunocompetent outbred mice can be effectively colo...

The amino acid sequence of heat-stable enterotoxin produced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli 18D has been revised. Amino acids originally assigned to positions 11 and 18, i.e., Tyr and Asn, respectively, were found to occupy positions 18 and 11, respectively. Thus all heat-stable enterotoxins composed of 18 amino acids sequenced to date from human, porcine, and bovine isolates of E. coli hav...

Cholera toxin (CT) and the heat-labile enterotoxin from Escherichia coli, when injected intraperitoneally into cycling hamsters but not rats or mice, induced a massive uterine growth similar to that normally induced by the implanting blastocyst during pregnancy. CT and heat-labile enterotoxin are the only known agents that have this action in any species. Uterine weight reached a maximal sixfol...

The development of a galactose-capped gold nanoparticle-based colorimetric sensor for the detection of the lectin heat-labile enterotoxin is reported. Heat-labile enterotoxin is one of the pathogenic agents responsible for the intestinal disease called 'traveller's diarrhoea'. By means of specific interaction between galactose moieties attached to the surface of gold nanoparticles and receptors...