New insights into a leading poultry disease and its risks to hu...(nes important for bacterial virulence wi...)

Among the disease causing parts of the plasmid pAPEC-1 are a series of genes that make up proteins responsible for trafficking nutrients in and out of bacteria, called ABC transporters, which may be used to develop vaccine candidates. In addition to nutrition, many other ABC transporters help the bacteria elude toxins a host uses to fight off the infection.

Most of the genes that cause APEC's harmful effects are responsible for iron acquisition. Iron is a key element necessary for bacterial health, and the pAPEC-1 portion uses redundant systems to acquire and then hold onto iron at all costs. Mellata speculates that only bacteria that have strategies to acquire iron sequestered by the host can survive in specific niches and consequently cause blood-borne infections, and the bacteria may need these multiple iron acquisition systems to adapt to environment changes.

To look for the presence of these APEC genes in humans, Mellata worked with a collection of one hundred human clinical samples of ExPEC strains isolated from urinary and non-urinary tract infections by Dr. James R. Johnson of the VA Medical Center at the University of Minnesota. Her team found that human and avian E. coli can carry the same disease-causing plasmids, indicating there is a risk that APEC can be transmitted, or its genetic material transmitted from poultry to humans.

These common genes could be considered as potential candidates for a vaccine.

During the course of their research, the team also discovered a finding that could have broad implications for understanding the strategies that bacteria use to trade genetic material. Plasmids are able to acquire more virulence genes or turn benign bacteria in
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