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Nature Medicine 6, 257 - 258 (2000)
doi:10.1038/73095

Blocking bacterial enterotoxins

John J. Donnelly1 & Rino Rappuoli1

  1. Chiron Corporation 4560 Horton St. Emeryville, California 94608, USA.
    e-mail:  John_Donnelly@cc.chiron.com

Intestinal infections with enteropathogenic Escherichia coli are potentially devastating and difficult to treat. Outbreaks linked to food-borne spread of the bacteria have occurred repeatedly in the US in recent years. New approaches to neutralizing the bacterial toxins responsible for the worst effects of the disease may provide lifesaving tools for clinicians (265–270).

Intestinal infections with Shigella dysenteriae and with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) can cause hemorrhagic colitis, a clinical syndrome characterized by abdominal cramps, bloody stools and little or no fever, as well as post-diarrheal hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS), a triad of renal failure, thrombocytopenia and hemolytic anaemia1. In young children and the elderly, such infections can be rapidly lethal; 119 cases of HUS were reported in the US in 1999 (ref.