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. 1978 Mar;19(3):1076–1082. doi: 10.1128/iai.19.3.1076-1082.1978

Cellular release of heat-labile enterotoxin of Escherichia coli by bacteriophage induction.

P Gemski, A D O'Brien, J A Wohlhieter
PMCID: PMC422298  PMID: 346482

Abstract

Treatment of some enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli strains with the antibiotic mitomycin C resulted in lysis of the bacteria. Heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) activity of culture filtrates, determined by means of the Y-1 adrenal cell assay, increased dramatically as lysis of the culture proceeded. Further studies with E. coli strains 263 and B21-4 revealed that lysis is due to mitomycin C induction of vetetative development of a temperature bacteriophage. These findings suggest that the elevated levels of LT detected after mitomycin C treatment reflect the lytic release of cell-bound LT rather than the induction by mitomycin C of de novo toxin biosynthesis. Comparable increases in LT activity also resulted from thermal induction of a phage P1Cm lysogen of strain 263 or from sonic disruption of enterotoxigenic strains.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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