The clinical manifestations of cholera are largely attributable to the actions of a secreted hexameric AB5 enterotoxin (choleragen). We have independently solved and refined the three-dimensional structure of choleragen at 2.5 A resolution. The structure of the crystalline toxin closely resembles that described for the heat-labile enterotoxin from Escherichia coli (LT) with which it shares 80% ...

with the plasmid dna from a clinical isolate of enterotoxigenic escherichia coli (etec) h 10407 as template, pcr-mediated cloning of the sequence encoding the heat-labile toxin b subunit (l t -b) has been carried out. then this sequence was recloned into the ptrc 99a and pet23a expression vectors to give the pjasmids ptrcltb and petltb, respectively. after induction, the former plasmid provides...

Three enterotoxins from the Aeromonas hydrophila diarrheal isolate SSU have been molecularly characterized in our laboratory. One of these enterotoxins is cytotoxic in nature, whereas the other two are cytotonic enterotoxins, one of them heat labile and the other heat stable. Earlier, by developing an isogenic mutant, we demonstrated the role of a cytotoxic enterotoxin in causing systemic infec...

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...