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Microbiology

Gastrogenomics

Nature volume 409, pages 463–465 (2001)Cite this article

The genome of an Escherichia coli strain that is emerging as a severe threat to human health has been sequenced. Comparing it with that of a harmless strain suggests why some forms of this bacterium cause disease.

Humans and Escherichia coli normally live happily together: E. coli is a beneficial bacterium commonly found in the human gastrointestinal system. But it also exists in harmful forms. One of the most harmful of these, called O157:H7, was first linked to human disease in 1983 (ref. 1), when it was shown to have been the cause of two outbreaks of an unusual and severe gastrointestinal ailment in the United States the previous year. The number of documented human illnesses and deaths caused by O157:H7 strains has since increased steadily worldwide, and these strains are now considered to be both emerging pathogens and major threats to public health2. Studies of O157:H7 receive a boost from a paper on page 529 of this issue3, in which Perna and colleagues describe and analyse the genome sequence of one strain of E. coli O157:H7.

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Figure 1: Model of the generation of genome islands specific to just one of a pair of related strains or species.

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  1. Institute for Genomic Research, 9712 Medical Center Drive, Rockville , 20850, Maryland, USA

    Jonathan A. Eisen

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  1. Jonathan A. Eisen
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Correspondence to Jonathan A. Eisen.

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Eisen, J. Gastrogenomics. Nature 409, 463–465 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35054158

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35054158

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