The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Helicobacter pylori on the function of gastric mucous cells. H. pylori (10(4) to 10(7) CFU/well) was incubated with the mucin-producing gastric cell line HM02 for 12 and 24 h. Mucin synthesis and secretion were determined by the incorporation of D-N-[acetyl-(14)C]glucosamine into intracellular and released high-molecular-weight glycoprotein...

Gastrointestinal disease and colonization by Helicobacter pylori were determined in 36 asymptomatic volunteers and 30 symptomatic individuals undergoing endoscopy and biopsy. Serum antibody immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgA to H. pylori were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum antibody to a cytotoxin produced by H. pylori was detected with a neutralization assay. Serum IgG was 95%...

Apoptosis is not only essential for homeostasis in normal cells but also in cancer cells, in which it is associated with cell death mechanisms caused by novel therapeutics. We have previously reported that interleukin-13 receptors (IL-13R) are constitutively overexpressed on a majority of human malignant glioma cell lines and primary cell cultures. In addition, we have reported that IL-13 cytot...

Klebsiella oxytoca is an opportunistic pathogen implicated in various clinical diseases in animals and humans. Studies suggest that in humans K. oxytoca exerts its pathogenicity in part through a cytotoxin. However, cytotoxin production in animal isolates of K. oxytoca and its pathogenic properties have not been characterized. Furthermore, neither the identity of the toxin nor a complete repert...

When axenic mice fed a commercial diet were monoassociated with two toxigenic strains of Clostridium difficile, 100% of them died 3 days after inoculation and both enterotoxin and cytotoxin were produced in their intestinal tract. However, when axenic mice were fed various semisynthetic diets before C. difficile challenge, some of them survived and their fecal cytotoxin and enterotoxin producti...

The incidence of Clostridium difficile cytotoxin has been studied in 69 consecutive patients with inflammatory bowel disease complicated by severe diarrhoea or ileostomy flux during 74 admissions to hospital. The cytotoxin was identified in only four patients, all of whom had received antimicrobials. Clostridium difficle, but not cytotoxin, was identified in 10 of 43 admissions. This followed a...

Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular human bacterial pathogen that infects epithelial cells of the eye and genital tract. Infection can result in trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, and sexually transmitted diseases. A common feature of infection is a chronic damaging inflammatory response for which the molecular pathogenesis is not understood. It has b...

A procedure was devised for routine examination of feces for Clostridium difficile with selective enrichment broth culture containing increased levels of carbohydrates and antibiotics to detect cytotoxin and volatile acids in broths inoculated with fecal samples. C. difficile was detected and identified with a rapidity comparable to that of conventional culture on selective cycloserine-cefoxiti...

Because the most characteristic property of ovarian cancer is i.p. spread, the majority of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, leading to limited availability of options for curative therapies. With an intent to identify targeted therapeutic approaches, we have observed that approximately 60% of 21 ovarian cancer tissue samples express a high density of interleukin-4 receptor (IL-4R), ...

Approximately 50% of Helicobacter pylori strains produce a cytotoxin that is encoded by vacA and that induces vacuolation of eukaryotic cells. Mosaicism in vacA alleles was reported, and there are three different families of vacA signal sequences (s1a, s1b, and s2) and two different families of middle-region alleles (m1 and m2). In addition, the vacA genotype of a strain is associated with its ...