Many species of bacteria induce secretory and inflammatory diarrhea (1). The increased intestinal fluid secretion in diarrhea appears to result from the active secretion of chloride (1-3), a principal anion, but the way in which diarrhea is caused by individual bacterial infections has not been completely elucidated. Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a Gram-negative halophilic bacterium that naturally occurs in marine and estuarine environments (4). It is a human pathogen that causes food-borne acute gastroenteritis, often associated with the consumption of raw or undercooked seafood (5, 6). Clinical symptoms of V. parahaemolyticus infections include watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, headaches, fever, and chills (7,8).
THERMOSTABLE DIRECT HEMOLYSIN (TDH) AND TDH-RELATED HEMOLYSIN (TRH)The majority of V. parahaemolyticus clinical isolates from patients with diarrhea has produced TDH and/or TRH, which are encoded by the tdh and trh genes, respectively (9). Strong associations have been found between gastroenteritis and these two proteins (10, 11). Therefore, TDH and TRH are regarded as major virulence factors of V. parahaemolyticus.V. parahaemolyticus TDH (Vp-TDH) is a proteinaceous toxin composed of 165 amino acids with one disulfide bond near the carboxyl terminus (12). The protein is a dimer, which lacks lipid and carbohydrate moieties, and has a molecular weight of c. 42 kDa by gel filtration and 21 kDa by denaturing sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) (13,14). Vp-TDH exhibits β-hemolytic activity on Wagatsuma medium, which has been termed the Kanagawa phenomenon (KP). Purified Vp-TDH is heat-stable, even at 100! !for
REVIEW
Diarrhea induced by infection of Vibrio parahaemolyticusTakaaki Shimohata and Akira Takahashi
Department of Preventive Environment and Nutrition, Institute of Health Biosciences, the University of Tokushima Graduate School, Tokushima, JapanAbstract : Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a human pathogen that naturally inhabits marine and estuarine environments. Infection with V. parahaemolyticus is often associated with the consumption of raw or undercooked seafood, causing gastroenteritis with watery diarrhea. The presence of two type III secretion system (T3SS) proteins, thermostable direct hemolysin (TDH) and TDH-related hemolysin (TRH), has been closely associated with the severity of diarrheal illness. TDH and TRH have various biological activities including hemolytic activity, cardiotoxicity, and enterotoxicity. T3SS1 is involved in cytotoxicity to host cells and orchestrates a multifaceted host cell infection by induction of autophagy, cell rounding, and cell lysis. T3SS2 is thought to be related to the enterotoxicity of V. parahaemolyticus. The activities of inducing diarrhea of each of the virulence factors were summarized in this review.