| dc.description.abstract | Diarrhea causes substantial morbidity and mortality in children in low-income countries.
Although numerous pathogens cause diarrhea, the etiology of many episodes remains
unknown. Serratia marcescens is incriminated in hospital-associated infections, and
HIV/AIDS associated diarrhea. We have recently found that Serratia spp. may be found more
commonly in the stools of patients with diarrhea than in asymptomatic control children. We
therefore investigated the possible enteric pathogenicity of S. marcescens in vitro employing
a polarized human colonic epithelial cell (T84) monolayer. Infected monolayers were
assayed for bacterial invasion, transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER), cytotoxicity,
interleukin-8 (IL-8) release and morphological changes by scanning electron microscopy.
We observed significantly greater epithelial cell invasion by S. marcescens compared to … | en_US |
