When you feel sick after a meal, it could be due to your own body’s tissue-repair mechanism. Scientists at the University of California Davis School of Medicine have discovered that certain microorganisms known as enteric pathogens, located in the digestive tract of humans, can cause harm to our bodies, instead of repairing the damages due to a food-borne illness.
Our digestive tract is home to millions of different types of bacteria. In our large intestine, gut pathogens must be able to survive in an oxygen-free environment, either by conducting anaerobic metabolism or by producing their own oxygen. Certain enteric pathogens and microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli in humans or Citrobacter rodentium in mice, can cause disease. These specific species of bacteria need oxygen to survive and new research has revealed how these two pathogens are able to manipulate the gut’s environment to help themselves grow.
According to the UC Davis research team, the bacteria can produce virulence factors, molecules that allow the organism to attach itself on or within a host. The virulence factors can actually cause major harm to our digestive tract, and can result with symptoms such as diarrhea.
Once this happens, the body’s repair mechanism seeks to increase the amount of epithelial cells that make up the lining of mucus membranes. In this process, immature cells, which contain oxygen, are made. The rapid increase of oxygen levels in the digestive tract is exactly what allows the enteric pathogens to grow and the beneficial anaerobic microbes to die. Therefore, the body’s way of fixing damage can actually be what is causing foodborne illness in the first place.
This research, led by Andreas Bäumler, a Medical Microbiology and Immunology professor from the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, not only sheds light on how pathogens alter the gut environment but also highlights the importance of finding new routes of treatment.
Over the past decades, more bacteria have shown resistance to antibiotics. Bäumler’s findings could change the direction of treatments.
“The rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria has become a major public health threat worldwide. As more bacterial strains do not respond to the drugs designed to kill them, the advances made in treating infectious diseases over the last 50 years are in jeopardy,” Bäumler said according to a press release.
The World Health Organization states that antibiotic-resistant bacteria present a huge problem globally because medical procedures, such as surgery, could lead to life-threatening complications. These bacteria include Clostridium difficile, Carbapenem enterobacteriaceae and Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Right now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two million people in the United States are annually diagnosed with diseases caused by bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The government of the United Kingdom has predicted that by 2050, 10 million lives could be lost. The rise of drug-resistant organisms is a cause of concern to many on the Hopkins campus as well.
“It’s an issue that I think is not only current, but also one with a lasting impact and significance. The fact that organisms can develop resistance puts us in an almost endless cycle, bringing problems we thought we had previously eradicated back to the drawing board. As new problems continue to arise, re-addressing old ones could place quite a burden,” Saachi Nangia, a senior public health studies and biology major, said in an interview with The News-Letter.
Bäumler’s research raises a lot of questions about the direction of future research. New antibiotics are necessary for the rise of communicable diseases around the world, but the question becomes how effective they will be if bacteria start developing resistance.
Bäulmer’s findings also raise important questions on how to eradicate enteric pathogens, such as Escherichia coli, to prevent them from causing harm to our digestive systems.
Currently, the focus of scientific research is not only looking at how to prevent antibiotic resistance but also what effect bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract have on cancer, obesity, behavior, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Fixing the problems associated with bacteria can solve a major public health problem and hopefully lead to fewer lives lost to these condi
