Discovered by researchers from the University of Münster from where the danger of E. coli derives. It is a form that contains the power of two different bacteria, binding to the intestinal walls and releasing the Shiga toxin.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerous
A double-faced threat that of Eschericia Coli, which has already killed 40 people in Germany. It was discovered by some scholars from the University of Münster what makes the bacterium so fearsome. Its danger in fact depends on theunion of two pathogens.
Il ceppo O104: H4 of the microorganism in fact would be nothing more than a 'clone', which managed to combine together the harmful power of two virulent pathogens: the first capable of producing the Shiga toxin as the enterohemorrhagic E. coli do (EHEC) and the second that adheres to the intestinal wall, a typical characteristic of enteroaggregating E. coli (EAEC).
In addition, if we also add the resistance formed in relation to some antibiotics the game is done. The result was what we unfortunately know. An epidemic that still frightens and for which an adequate response has not yet been found.
But one thing has now been established: the ceppo O104: H4 is a terrible mix, able both to concentrate in the intestinal wall and to give life to the Shiga toxin, from which the hemolytic-uremic syndrome. Indeed, by binding to the walls of our intestine, the bacterium is able to spread the toxin more easily.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers reconstructed the O104: H4 profiles in laboratories by analyzing 80 samples of bacteria from patients hospitalized between May 23 and June 2. It emerged that "the enhanced adherence of this strain to the intestinal walls could facilitate the absorption by the intestine of the tossina Shiga and therefore explain the unusual high frequency with which the infection progressed towards the haemolytic-uremic syndrome ".
The results of the research were announced through the journal The Lancet.
Francesca Mancuso
