Kristin Burkholder, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biology, along with Dylan Fletcher, B.S., Biological Sciences '17, Lauren Gileau, B.S., Nursing '17 and Arnold Kandolo, a class od 2018 biotechnology graduate from southern Maine Community College, published a manuscript in the journal Pathogens and Disease.
In the article, the group reports that probiotic lactic acid bacteria can mitigate virulence of the gastrointestinal pathogen Salmonella enterica Javiana, a leading cause of severe foodborne Salmonellosis.
Despite its emergence as a major foodborne pathogen, little is known of how it interacts with intestinal epithelial cells.
The authors demonstrated that during infection of human intestinal cells, probiotic bacteria impaired Salmonella invasion and cytotoxicity, decreased Salmonella virulence gene expression and modulated the host inflammatory response to infection.
These findings suggest potential mechanisms by which probiotic bacteria might protect the host intestinal tract against Salmonella-induced damage.
