{"id":18420,"date":"2018-09-25T14:57:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T18:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugaresearch.uga.edu\/?p=18420"},"modified":"2019-09-16T15:22:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T19:22:59","slug":"researchers-seek-vaccine-for-travelers-diarrhea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/researchers-seek-vaccine-for-travelers-diarrhea\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers seek vaccine for \u2018traveler\u2019s diarrhea\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, millions of people have vacations and business trips ruined when they succumb to \u201ctraveler\u2019s diarrhea\u201d during their journeys. A major cause of traveler\u2019s diarrhea is bacteria called Enterotoxigenic E. coli<\/em>, or ETEC. A joint effort between the University of Georgia and the University of Texas at Austin has discovered how ETEC works to cause disease. They are using this information in an effort to develop a preventive vaccine for travelers.<\/p>\n

\"Enterotoxigenic
Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) approach intestinal epithelial cells during human infection. When in close proximity to the host epithelium ETEC senses oxygen seeping (blue) from intestinal epithelial cells to increase expression of adhesins and secreted toxins (magenta). (Photo by Brad Gilleland)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The researchers, led by the University of Georgia\u2019s Stephen Trent<\/a>\u2014a professor in the department of infectious diseases\u2014teamed up with the U.S. Navy Medical Research Center and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to study samples taken directly from citizens who volunteered to become infected with ETEC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can understand how ETEC causes disease, we can develop new vaccines to prevent infections,\u201d Trent said.<\/p>\n

Ingesting contaminated food or water can lead to ETEC infection, which can cause diarrhea for up to a week. Considering the fact that up to 200 million people become infected annually, an estimated 1 billion days of human productivity are lost every year due to ETEC infections.<\/p>\n

Visiting the doctor to get vaccinated before a trip can prevent travelers from catching a disease. Unfortunately, there are no available vaccines to prevent ETEC infections, so travelers must constantly be concerned about what they eat and drink while on vacation.<\/p>\n

The group examined how ETEC behaved inside humans during infection compared to how it behaved in the laboratory. They were surprised to find that ETEC produced more toxins when grown in the laboratory than it did in human infection samples. Bewildered, the researchers sought to figure out why. They discovered that ETEC could sense oxygen in the atmosphere, and that controlled the amount of toxins produced by ETEC. This explained their surprising data: There is more oxygen in the atmosphere than there is in the digestive tract, which resulted in the differing levels of toxin expression.<\/p>\n

This breakthrough gives researchers hope that they have identified the \u201ccue\u201d that ETEC uses to determine when to make toxins that cause disease. How ETEC causes disease via toxins has been studied exhaustively for decades. Previous groups have identified numerous factors that contribute to toxin production in ETEC, but this is the first-time oxygen has been identified as a major player in ETEC virulence. Lead author and University of Texas graduate student Alex Crofts said, \u201cWe think ETEC can sense the oxygen given off by our own cells as a cue to produce toxins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group now hopes to use this oxygen-sensitive ETEC response against the bacteria to prevent infections. \u201cBeyond toxins, we found ETEC regulates many other factors in response to oxygen, and some of those are promising new targets for future vaccines,\u201d explained Trent. \u201cETEC is a global burden on society, and we are doing all we can to advance our understanding of the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full article was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em> on Aug. 20 and is online at https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2018\/08\/15\/1808982115<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research identifies the \u201ccue\u201d that Enterotoxigenic E. coli uses to determine when to make toxins that cause disease<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":18421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"post_medium":[314],"publications":[321],"authors":[409],"photographers":[],"video_credit":[],"takeaways":[],"class_list":["post-18420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infectious-disease","post_medium-read","publications-cnn","authors-lisa-herrmann","entry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"post_medium","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_medium?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"publications","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publications?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"photographers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/photographers?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"video_credit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_credit?post=18420"},{"taxonomy":"takeaways","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/takeaways?post=18420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}