Bacterial Digestive Pathogens 11.28.2022. Study Questions

Question 1

How is foodborne infection different from foodborne intoxication?

Answer 1

Intoxication: illness from consuming an exotoxin produced by a microorganism growing in a food product

Infection: requires the consumption of living organisms

Question 2

Describe how the cholera toxin results in severe watery diarrheal disease

Answer 2

toxin causes intestinal cells to release Cl- ions and other ions. water follows these ions and leave the cells via osmosis

Question 3

How do Shigella and Listeria cells move from one cell to another despite being immotile? (remember from pathogenesis)

Answer 3

bacterial cells produce a protein that polymerizes host cell actin to form an “actin tail” that propels the bacterium within the cell, sometimes with enough force to move it into a neighboring cell

Question 4

How are C. difficile infections acquired and why?

Answer 4

in hospitalized patients on antibiotic therapy, probably because the organism can only grow to high numbers when the normal intestinal microbiota has been disrupted

Question 5

What are the two toxins of C. difficile?

Answer 5

An enterotoxin called Toxin A (TcdA)
A cytotoxin called Toxin B (TcdB)

Question 6

How do the two toxins of C. difficile cause disease?

Answer 6

destroy intestinal epithelial cells by disrupting actin

Question 7

What is the current treatment protocol for acute and chronic C. difficile infections? (2)

Answer 7

• specific antibiotics
• fecal transplant