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Home Journal Highlights Engineered Pyocin Prevents, Mitigates O157-induced Diarrhea in Animal Model
Engineered Pyocin Prevents, Mitigates O157-induced Diarrhea in Animal Model Print E-mail
New therapeutics to treat Escherichia coli O157 and related Shiga toxin-producing E. coli are needed because antibiotics can augment toxin production and exacerbate the consequences of infection. Dean Scholl of AvidBioics Corp., South San Francisco, et al. show that oral administration of an engineered R-type pyocin that specifically kills E. coli O157 can prevent or ameliorate E. coli O157-induced diarrhea in an infant rabbit model of infection. Their findings suggest that engineered R-type pyocins have great potential as a new class of pathogen-specific therapeutics. "Future work is aimed toward determining optimal formulations for enteric delivery of pyocins as well as creating new pyocins specific for other important enteric pathogens including Salmonella, Shigella, and Vibrio cholerae and additional serogroups of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli," says Scholl.

(J. M. Ritchie, J. L. Greenwich, B. M. Davis, R. T. Bronson, D. Gebhart, S. R. Williams, D. Martin, D. Scholl, and M. K. Waldor. 2011. An Escherichia coli O157-specific engineered pyocin prevents and ameliorates infection by E. coli O157:H7 in an animal model of diarrheal disease. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 55: 5469-5474.)