6
June 2002
Bacteriology: Hyperinfective cholera
Comparisons of the properties of in vitro (laboratory) grown and in vivo grown pathogenic bacteria have the potential to reveal the some of the mechanisms involved in pathogenesis. Use of this method shows that cholera epidemics may be propagated by human-adapted Vibrio cholerae that are 500-fold more infective than laboratory grown isolates. The hyperinfectious V. cholerae has a rather paradoxical phenotype, motile but non-chemotactic.
Host-induced epidemic spread of the cholera
bacterium
D. SCOTT MERRELL, SUSAN M. BUTLER, FIRDAUSI QADRI,
NADIA A. DOLGANOV, AHSFAQUL ALAM, MITCHELL B. COHEN, STEPHEN B. CALDERWOOD,
GARY K. SCHOOLNIK & ANDREW CAMILLI
Nature 417, 642–645 (6 June 2002)
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Cholera needs
guts to survive
Human stomach boosts cholera bacterium's infectivity
