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J Mekalanos

Publications and source records attributed to J Mekalanos.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Development of antimicrobial agents in the era of new and reemerging infectious diseases and increasing antibiotic resistance.

During the past 2 decades, new infectious diseases have appeared and old ones previously thought to be controlled have reemerged. New and reemerging infectious agents will continue to pose serious threats well into the 21st century. The prediction that the threat of infectious disease may not diminish is supported by evidence that infectious agents cause many chronic diseases and cancer of previous unknown etiology. Moreover, the utility of existing antimicrobial agents is rapidly eroding, tipping the balance in favor of multidrug-resistant pathogens, and there appear to be few, if any, new classes of drugs currently in clinical development. The need for research directed toward development of new antibiotics has never been greater. Advances in research technologies and microbial genome sequencing in the past decade have led to identification of a large number of new targets. Functional genomics and integrative biology should validate these targets and provide the best opportunity for developing effective new therapies, improved diagnostic techniques, and better tools to understand host-pathogen interactions.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Clinical and environmental isolates of Vibrio cholerae serogroup O141 carry the CTX phage and the genes encoding the toxin-coregulated pili.

We report sporadic cases of a severe gastroenteritis associated with Vibrio cholerae serogroup O141. Like O1 and O139 serogroup strains of V. cholerae isolated from cholera cases, the O141 clinical isolates carry DNA sequences that hybridize to cholera toxin (CT) gene probes. The CT genes of O1 and O139 strains are carried by a filamentous bacteriophage (termed CTX phage) which is known to use toxin-coregulated pili (TCP) as its receptor. In an effort to understand the mechanism of emergence of toxigenic O141 V. cholerae, we probed a collection of O141 clinical and environmental isolates for genes involved in TCP production, toxigenicity, virulence regulation, and other phylogenetic markers. The collection included strains isolated between 1964 and 1995 from diverse geographical locations, including eight countries and five U.S. states. Information collected about the clinical and environmental sources of these isolates suggests that they had no epidemiological association. All clinical O141 isolates hybridized to probes specific for genes encoding CT (ctx), zonula occludens toxin (zot), repetitive sequence 1 (RS1), RTX toxin (rtxA), the major subunit of TCP (tcpA), and the essential regulatory gene that controls expression of both CT and TCP (toxR). In contrast, all but one of the nonclinical O141 isolates were negative for ctx, zot, RS1, and tcpA, although these strains were positive for rtxA and toxR. The one toxigenic environmental O141 isolate was also positive for tcpA. Ribotyping and CT typing showed that the O141 clinical isolates were indistinguishable or closely related, while a toxigenic water isolate from Louisiana showed a distantly related ribotype. Nonclinical O141 isolates displayed a variety of unrelated ribotypes. These data support a model for emergence of toxigenic O141 that involves acquisition of the CTX phage sometime after these strains had acquired the pathogenicity island encoding TCP. The clonal nature of toxigenic O141 strains isolated from diverse geographical locations suggests that the emergence is a rare event but that once it occurs, toxigenic O141 strains are capable of regional and perhaps even global dissemination. This study stresses the importance of monitoring V. cholerae non-O1, non-O139 serogroup strains for their virulence gene content as a means of assessing their epidemic potential.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Safe, live Vibrio cholerae vaccines?

Mutants of Vibrio cholerae defective in intestinal colonization have been constructed. Characterization of these mutants has led to the identification of a gene cluster involved in the assembly of a pilus colonization factor called TCP. The tcp operon has been cloned and strains of V. cholerae have been constructed that overproduce this pilus and the B subunit of cholera toxin. Together these studies may contribute to the eventual construction of efficient live and killed, oral cholera vaccines.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMed1979

Analysis of transmembrane dynamics of cholera toxin using photoreactive probes.

Using sodium dodecyl sulfate--polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and autoradiography, we have shown that 125I-labeled cholera toxin binds to Newcastle disease virus. Pretreatment of Newcastle disease virus with "cold" cholera toxin (at 37 degrees C for 30 minutes) inhibits the binding of 125I-labeled toxin in a subsequent incubation (at 37 degrees C for 30 minutes). These results suggest that cholera toxin binds to Newcastle disease virus in a specific manner. The precise receptor for toxin is unknown in Newcastle disease virus but it is presumed to be the ganglioside GM1. We have previously shown that the photoreactive probe 12-(4-azido-2-nitrophenoxy)stearoylglucosamine[1-14C] labels the membrane proteins of Newcastle disease virus. Since the reactive group of the probe, ie, N3, resides within the membrane bilayer, studies were initiated to determined which, if any, of the subunits of cholera toxin cross the membrane of Newcastle disease virus and become radioactively labeled upon photoactivation of the probe at 360 nm. After a 15-minute incubation of cholera toxin with Newcastle disease virus containing the photoreactive probe, irradiation effected the 14C-labeling of the active A1 subunit of cholera toxin. Irradiation of cholera toxin in solution with an equivalent amount of probe but without virus resulted in no labeling of toxin subunits.

Azides↗