Finding May Lead to Vaccine for Traveler's Diarrhea
WEDNESDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Montezuma's revenge, also known as traveler's diarrhea, can ruin a vacation.
Now, researchers have figured out how the bacteria responsible for the illness -- enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, or ETEC -- are able to make you so miserable.
The bacteria use surface "pili" or "fimbriae" to attach, or bind, to the intestinal epithelia of the host. These fibers, which are needed for ETEC infection to take place in the intestines, exit the bacterium through a pore on the bacterial surface, the researchers explained in a news release from the Boston University School of Medicine.
"Atomic resolution detail of the proteins in the fibers and analysis of genetic variability among different clinical strains were combined to show that each bacterial strain presents a different outer surface of the major protein while preserving the protein components that are buried within the fiber," the study's senior author, Esther Bullitt, an associate professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine, said in the news release.
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