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About The Project

Shiga toxins are one of the most potent toxins. They are produced by the bacteria naturally occurring in the environment. The largest group of bacteria produce these life-threatening toxins are enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, classified as STEC (Shigatoxigenic E. coli).Genome of lambdoid bacteriophages encode virulence factor for STEC strains – Shiga toxin.

The main source of STEC strains are pigs and cattle, but there are also cases of these pathogens in sheep, goats and even poultry. Infectious agents are transferred to the environment with the faeces of animals and become accessible to man. An ingestion of raw meat and unwashed fruits and vegetables can lead to the most common complications, which include severe food poisoning with bloody diarrhea. Exacerbation of these symptoms can lead to the development of hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, which poses a direct threat to the life of people infected.

Large-scale prophylactic use of antibiotics in medicine contributes to the problem of finding resistance by infectious bacterial strains. Moreover, the naturally occurring strains in the environment may also exhibit resistance to many commonly used antibiotics. The stress caused by the action of antibiotics leads to the induction of bacteriophages from the host genome and the production of toxins. This causes worsening of inflammatory conditions resulting in numerous complications and deterioration of the patient.

Use a conventional antibiotics to fight infections STEC in most cases lead to increase exacerbation causes by phage induction. That is why we would like to use the regulation of gene expression antisense RNA (asRNA) to reduce the conditional and controlled development of bacteriophage in the host cells. The use of naturally-occurring systems of regulation of the expression can be a valuable tool for monitoring the growth and development of these organisms. In our team we develop new methods of combat with disease-causing micro-organisms and this is in line with the Directive of the European Parliament of 23 October 2007, establishing a second program of community action in the field of health for the period 2008-2013, indicating the priority of public health threat of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and reduce therapeutic infections.