Mechanism of Heat-Libile E. coli Enterotoxin Production

대장균의 이열성장독소 생산기전

Enterotoxigenk E. coli is one of the major causative agents of the infantile diarrhea and traveler's diarrhea. The heat-labile enterotoxin is thought to be a virulence factor in the pathogenesis of the diarrhea and to be a marker for identification of the enterotoxigenic E. coli from non pathogenic E. coli. Therefore knowledge about the heat-labile enterotoxin is essential not only for understanding the pathogenesis but also for the diagnosis of the diarrhea. However the in-vitro heat-labile enterotoxin production is reported to be greatly affected by the cultural condition. In this regards, this study was designed to know the optimal conditions for the production of the heat-labile enterotoxin by assaying the permeability factor in the 18 hours culture supernatant of E. coli 08K25(B2) H9 and of E. coli 015 H11. Results obtained were summerized as follows: 1. Amounts of heat-labile enterotoxin produced were greater at initial pH 8.5 than at 7.0 of CYES-2 broth culture. However, the bacterial growth itself was more abundant at 7.0 than at 8.5. 2. Heat-labile enterotoxin per unit volume of culture supernatant was greater at shaking culture than at standing culture condition, but ratio of the enterotoxin produced over the unit mass of E. coli calculated was greater at standing culture than shaking culture condition, indicating that the greater yields of the toxin produced at shaking culture was due to increase in E. coli cell mass compared to the standing culture condition: 3. The enterotoxin produced in the lincomycin(128 microgram/ml) supplemented media was 5 or 11 times greater on the basis of enterotoxin per unit mass of E. coli, compared to the lincomycin-non-supplemented media, indicating that lincomycin itself increases the enterotoxin production. 4. Treatment of 18 hours culture of E. coli with polymyxin B(0.2 mg/ml) for 1 hour increased the yields of enterotoxin amounting to 2 or 5 times of the non-treated control cultures.