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S. Fukuda et al., “Bifidobacteria can protect from enteropathogenic infection through production of acetate,” Nature, 469:543-47, 2011. Free F1000 evaluation
When Hiroshi Ohno’s colleague at RIKEN noticed that some strains of bacteria could protect mice from otherwise lethal infections with the pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 (called O157), Ohno decided to find out why. He found that the protective bacteria expresses a transporter protein that allows it to produce acetate, which inhibits the infected host cell’s uptake of Shiga toxin—responsible for the bloody diarrhea and colitis caused by the 0157 strain.
Germ-free mice infected with either O157 alone, or O157 together with a strain of Bifidobacterium adolescentis that naturally lacked the transporter protein, died within seven days, but survived if they’d been previously inoculated with protective ...
