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According to World Health Organization, campylobacter is the most common cause of bacterial food poisoning in the world, the bacterium lives naturally in the guts of poultry and cattle without affecting them but causes debilitating diarrhea and severe abdominal cramping when it enters the human body. The U.S. Navy Medical Research Center and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health recruited citizen volunteers to test new therapies that may prevent the infection.
The volunteers signed up to drink Campylobacter bacteria in the clinic so doctors and researchers can determine the effectiveness of their therapies. A University of Georgia team led by Stephen Trent, a professor of infectious disease in UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, examined the bacteria in the infectious samples produced by the volunteers. Understanding how infectious bacteria adapt inside humans can reveal the tools the bacteria use to survive, and those tools can be targeted with new therapeutics to kill the bacteria.
The team discovered that Campylobacter relied on genes-cipA to adapt and survive in human hosts. These genes enable the bacteria to evade the immune response. Campylobacter infections in young children are associated with stunted growth periods that can lead to physical and cognitive impairments.
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