Shigella: A Highly Virulent and Elusive Pathogen

Abstract

Despite a significant decrease in Shigella-related mortality, shigellosis continues to carry a significant burden of disease worldwide, particularly in Asia and Africa. Shigella is a highly virulent pathogen comprised of four major species with numerous subtypes. Shigella dysenteriae and Shigella flexneri infections are predominant in resource-limited settings. Clinical presentations range from mild watery diarrhea to severe dysentery with systemic complications such as electrolyte imbalance, seizures and hemolytic uremic syndrome. S. dysenteriae subtype 1, the producer of Shiga toxin, causes the most severe illness and highest mortality. Susceptible strains of Shigella may be effectively treated with inexpensive oral antibiotics such as ampicillin or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Unfortunately, multidrug resistant strains have emerged that have rendered most antibiotics, including fluoroquinolones and extended-spectrum cephalosporins, ineffective. Management and prevention of shigellosis represents a major public health challenge. The development of an effective vaccine is urgently needed to decrease its global impact.

Towards a peptide-based vaccine against Shigella sonnei : A subtractive reverse vaccinology based approach

“…Shigellosis, a severe and life-threatening diarrheal infection, is a major health concern in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries [1]. Annually, 91 million cases of shigellosis are reported worldwide [2] and it is associated with significant mortality and morbidity [3]. Shigellosis is placed 6 th on the list of high mortality rate diseases in China [4] and is ranked 3 rd in the United States among gastrointestinal diseases [5].…”

Modulatory Effect of Lippia alba Essential Oil on the Activity of Clinically Used Antimicrobial Agents on Salmonella typhi and Shigella dysenteriae Biofilm

“…The management and prevention of Salmonella and Shigella infections represent a major public health challenge [9,42], and the present study demonstrated the great potential of LaEO I in the treatment of these infections.…”

RNA structures are involved in the thermoregulation of bacterial virulence-associated traits

“…Sometimes all the members of a bacterial genus or species are pathogenic (e.g., Shigella, Listeria and Pseudomonas aeruginosa [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]), while in other genera only certain subgroups have the genetic information necessary to establish pathogenic interactions. In many of these cases, this information is encoded in mobile genetic elements such as plasmids, phages, or pathogenicity islands (such as with Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]).…”

“…This heme-uptake strategy to acquire iron during infection is used by different Shigella species and by pathogenic E. coli, using orthologous genes (called shu in Shigella and chu in pathogenic E. coli) [98]. Shigella dysenteriae and other types of Shigella, cause severe diarrhea and are estimated to produce >1 million deaths annually [6], and together with pathogenic E. coli, they are considered to be a major global health problem [98]. The presence of a heme uptake system in uropathogenic, enterohemorrhagic, and enteroaggregative E. coli correlate with virulence [99]; this heme-uptake system is not present in the laboratory E. coli K12 strain [100].…”