Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains harbor multiple fimbriae and pili to mediate host colonization, including the type IVb pilus, colonization factor antigen III (CFA/III). Not all colonization factors are well characterized or known in toxin positive ETEC isolates, which may have an impact identifying ETEC isolates based on molecular screening of these biomarkers. We describe a nov...

Infection caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) poses a serious health problem among children and adults in developing countries. Colonization of the small intestinal mucosa by ETEC strains is mediated by antigenically specific fimbriae, also known as colonization factor antigens (CFA). The significance of this study arises from reports that active and passive immunization with ETEC...

Recent studies have shown that children with blood group A have increased susceptibility to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) diarrhea and that Lewis blood group "a" antigen (Le(a)) may be a candidate receptor for ETEC colonization factor (CF) antigen I (CFA/I) fimbriae. Based on these findings, we have attempted to determine if children with the Le(a+b-) phenotype may be more susceptible...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is an important cause of diarrhoea in children and piglets. Infection of ETEC results in fluid secretion and electrolyte losses in the small intestine. In this study the effects of tempeh, a traditional fungal fermented soybean product, on fluid losses induced by ETEC infection in piglets was investigated. Pairs of ETEC-infected and non-infected small int...

The heat-labile toxin (LT) is one of the major virulence factors of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). We recently described that 20 polymorphic LT variants are present in ETEC strains isolated globally. Two of the variants, LT1 and LT2, are particularly common and we found that they were associated with clonal ETEC lineages that express the colonization factors (CFs), CFA/I, CS1+CS3, CS2...

BACKGROUND Shigatoxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) cause serious foodborne infections in humans. These two pathogroups are defined based on the pathogroup-associated virulence genes: stx encoding Shiga toxin (Stx) for STEC and elt encoding heat-labile and/or est encoding heat-stable enterotoxin (ST) for ETEC. The study investigated the genomics of STEC/ETEC hyb...

BACKGROUND Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a major diarrheal pathogen in developing countries, where it accounts for millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. While vaccine development to prevent diarrheal illness due to ETEC is feasible, extensive effort is needed to identify conserved antigenic targets. Pathogenic Escherichia coli, including ETEC, use the...

We evaluated effect of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) specific lytic phage CJ12 in ETEC infected pigs. Phage was mixed with feed at a ratio of 1:1,000 (0.1%). One week after initially providing phage mixed feed, pigs were challenged orally with 10(11) CFU of ETEC and body weight, diarrhea score, bacterial CFU and phage PFU in the feces were measured. Pigs of phage treated groups C (10(...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) are important intestinal pathogens that cause diarrhea in humans and animals. Although probiotic bacteria may protect against ETEC-induced enteric infections, the underlying mechanisms are unknown. In this study, porcine intestinal epithelial J2 cells (IPEC-J2) were pre-incubated with and without Lactobacillus rhamnosus ATCC 7469 and then exposed to F4+ E...

BACKGROUND Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) colonize the human intestinal mucosa using pili and non-pili colonization factors (CFs). CS21 (also designated Longus) is one of the most prevalent CFs encoded by a 14 kb lng DNA cluster located in a virulence plasmid of ETEC; yet limited information is available on the prevalence of CS21 positive ETEC isolates in different countries. The aim o...