Hiroshi Zen-Yoji

Correlation between Epithelial Cell Infectivity In Vitro and O-Antigen Groups of Yersinia enterocolitica

Yersinia enterocolitica has been isolated from patients mainly with intestinal disorders throughout the world, including Japan (1-3, 7, 10), and the organisms are assumed to be one of the enteropathogenic bacteria for human beings. In our experiments to clarify this pathogenicity, it was observed that the pathogenic strains of the clinical isolates vigorously penetrated epithelial cells in vivo and in vitro, and severe enteritis analogous to that in man could be produced in rabbits by intraduodenal inoculation (5, 6). Based on these results which suggested that the penetration of the bacilli through epithelial linings of the intestinal mucosa was an essential factor for establishment of infection, Y. enterocolitica was considered to be an invasion type enteric pathogen such as Shigella flexneri and Salmonella typhimurium (4). Although Y. enterocolitica is at present divided into various O-antigen groups

FOOD POISONING CauSED BY PatHOGENIC HALOPHILIC BACTERIA (Pseudomonas enteritis TAKIKAWA)

Four autopsy cases of food poisoning caused by pathogenic halophilic bacteria (Pseudomonas enteritis Takikawa) have been reported for the first time.