Investigation of E. coli Enterotoxins.

Abstract

In the course of investigating E. coli enterotoxins, it was discovered that trypsin treatment of partially purified enterotoxin from strain H197 (078:H11) as well as cell-free culture filtrates from several different enterotoxigenic strains resulted in a 4- to 20-fold increase in heat-labile rabbit skin vascular permeability activity (PF). PF assays performed on culture filtrates after short-term incubation in vivo (i.e., in ligated rabbit ileal loops) did exhibit elevated PF titers compared with uninoculated controls. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that E. coli enterotoxins represent a new class of protoxins and as such may undergo in vivo enzymic modification in order to become fully pathogenic. The details of findings with cell-free culture filtrates as well as preliminary purification studies with trypsin-treated enterotoxin are presented in this report.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 1975
Accession Number
ADA015076

Entities

People

  • Ruth Rappaport

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Biological Factors
  • Biological Sciences
  • Biological Toxins
  • Incubation
  • Permeability
  • Physical Properties

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Cardiovascular Physiology
  • Microbial Pathology