E. coli News and Research

RSS

E. coli or Escherichia coli is the name of a type of bacteria that lives in your intestines. Most types of E. coli are harmless. However, some types can make you sick and cause diarrhea. One type causes travelers' diarrhea. The worst type of E. coli causes bloody diarrhea, and can sometimes cause kidney failure and even death. These problems are most likely to occur in children and in adults with weak immune systems. You can get E. coli infections by eating foods containing the bacteria. To help avoid food poisoning and prevent infection, handle food safely. Cook meat well, wash fruits and vegetables before eating or cooking them, and avoid unpasteurized milk and juices. You can also get the infection by swallowing water in a swimming pool contaminated with human waste. Most cases of E. coli infection get better without treatment in 5 to 10 days.

Cloned Zika virus could be used for development of attenuated vaccine

Stopping the explosive spread of Zika virus - which can lead to birth defects in babies born to infected mothers - depends on genetic insights gleaned through new tools and models.

23 Aug 2016

Study finds 10% of patients admitted into hospitals colonised with dreaded pathogens

According to National Reference Center for Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections esti-mates, up to 15,000 patients die of hospital-acquired infections in Germany every year.

18 Aug 2016

Researchers discover new set of bacterial cell wall synthesizers

Harvard Medical School scientists have identified a new family of proteins that virtually all bacteria use to build and maintain their cell walls.

17 Aug 2016

Disordered airway microbiome at birth may be linked to severe neonatal lung disease

In contrast to the general belief that the airways of an infant are sterile until after birth, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers and colleagues have found that the infant airway is already colonized with bacteria or bacterial DNA when a baby is born -- and this is true for infants born as early as 24 weeks gestation.

5 Aug 2016

E. coli K1 inhibits glucose transporters during meningitis, report scientists

Escherichia coli K1 (E. coli K1) continues to be a major threat to the health of young infants. Affecting the central nervous system, it causes neonatal meningitis by multiplying in immune cells, such as macrophages, and then disseminating into the bloodstream to subsequently invade the blood-brain barrier.

3 Aug 2016

E. coli bacteria capable of beneficial mutations at more variable rates than previously thought

Scientists studying how microbes evolve have long assumed that nearly all new genetic mutations get passed down at a predictable pace and usually without either helping or hurting the microbe in adapting to its environment.

2 Aug 2016

Human immune system proteins can help combat chlamydia infections

Scientists from Federal Research and Clinical Centre of Physical-Chemical Medicine, Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology and MIPT have shown that peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGLYRPs) of the human immune system can play a key role in the fight against chlamydia infections. Their study was published in Infection and Immunity.

28 Jul 2016

Combinations of three antibiotics could help combat drug-resistant bacterial infections

Each year, approximately 700,000 people die from drug-resistant bacterial infections. A study by UCLA life scientists could be a major step toward combating drug-resistant infections.

22 Jul 2016

Tourists returning from India import multidrug-resistant superbugs

Many tourists returning from India were found colonized with multidrug-resistant superbugs. Microbiologists at the Institute for Infectious Diseases of the University of Bern, Switzerland, also isolated a strain possessing a gene which can make these life-threatening bacteria resistant to the last active antibiotic option.

19 Jul 2016

Italian researchers identify new variant of emerging antibiotic resistance mechanism

A team of Italian investigators has discovered a new variant of an emerging antibiotic resistance mechanism. The new variant, dubbed mcr-1.2, confers resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens.

13 Jul 2016

Researchers identify new mechanism by which bacteria outsmarts immune system

Bacteria are rapidly developing resistance mechanisms to combat even the most effective antibiotics.

13 Jul 2016

Researchers bring idea for transparent skull implant closer to reality

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside are bringing their idea for a 'Window to the Brain' transparent skull implant closer to reality through the findings of two studies that are forthcoming in the journals Lasers in Surgery and Medicine and Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine.

12 Jul 2016

UTSA researcher elucidates innovative strategies to track disease-causing pathogens

In a new study published in Frontiers in Microbiology, Mark Eppinger, assistant professor in the Department of Biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio describes innovative strategies to track disease-causing pathogens like E. coli. Eppinger hopes his research will aid in halting and preventing large-scale outbreaks.

11 Jul 2016

Studies shed more light on relation between bacteria, immune system and antibiotics

Antibiotics and the immune system are the two forces that cope with bacterial infections. Now, two studies from Isabel Gordo's laboratory, at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, show for the first time that resistance to antibiotics and to the immune system is interconnected in bacteria.

4 Jul 2016

Researchers design E. coli-based transport capsule to help fight pneumococcal disease

Most people recoil at the thought of ingesting E. coli. But what if the headline-grabbing bacteria could be used to fight disease?

4 Jul 2016

Health-promoting bacteria may protect women from breast cancer

Bacteria that have the potential to abet breast cancer are present in the breasts of cancer patients, while beneficial bacteria are more abundant in healthy breasts, where they may actually be protecting women from cancer, according to Gregor Reid, PhD, and his collaborators.

25 Jun 2016

Scientists insert metabolic pathway for carbon fixation and sugar production into E. coli bacterium

All life on the planet relies, in one way or another, on a process called carbon fixation: the ability of plants, algae and certain bacteria to "pump" carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment, add solar or other energy and turn it into the sugars that are the required starting point needed for life processes.

24 Jun 2016

E. coli News and Research

Further Reading