Shah M. Faruque, M. John Albert, John J. Mekalanos
Cholera caused by toxigenic Vibrio cholerae is a major public health problem confronting developing countries, where outbreaks occur in a regular seasonal pattern and are particularly associated with poverty and poor sanitation. The disease is characterized by a devastating watery diarrhea which lea...
Chen-Shan Chin, Jon M. Sorenson, Jason B. Harris, William P. Robins et al.
BACKGROUND: Although cholera has been present in Latin America since 1991, it had not been epidemic in Haiti for at least 100 years. Recently, however, there has been a severe outbreak of cholera in Haiti. METHODS: We used third-generation single-molecule real-time DNA sequencing to determine the ge...
Shah M. Faruque, Iftekhar Bin Naser, M. Johirul Islam, Abu Syed Golam Faruque et al.
The relationship among (i) the local incidence of cholera, (ii) the prevalence in the aquatic environment of Vibrio cholerae, and (iii) bacterial viruses that attack potentially virulent O1 and O139 serogroup strains of this organism (cholera phages) was studied in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Over nearly a 3...
Shah M. Faruque, Kuntal Biswas, S. M. Nashir Udden, Qazi Shafi Ahmad et al.
The factors that enhance the waterborne spread of bacterial epidemics and sustain the epidemic strain in nature are unclear. Although the epidemic diarrheal disease cholera is known to be transmitted by water contaminated with pathogenic Vibrio cholerae, routine isolation of pathogenic strains from ...
Shah M. Faruque, M. Johirul Islam, Qazi Shafi Ahmad, Abu Syed Golam Faruque et al.
Phage predation of Vibrio cholerae has recently been reported to be a factor that influences seasonal epidemics of cholera in Bangladesh. To understand more about this phenomenon, we studied the dynamics of the V. cholerae-phage interaction during a recent epidemic in Dhaka. Because the outbreak str...
Mark A. Jensen, Shah M. Faruque, John J. Mekalanos, Bruce R. Levin
Cholera is a waterborne diarrheal disease that continues to plague the developing world. Individuals become infected by consuming water from reservoirs contaminated by virulent strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Epidemiological and environmental observations of a cholera outbreak in Dhaka, Ba...
Shah M. Faruque, Nityananda Chowdhury, Muhammad Kamruzzaman, Michelle Dziejman et al.
To understand the evolutionary events and possible selection mechanisms involved in the emergence of pathogenic Vibrio cholerae, we analyzed diverse strains of V. cholerae isolated from environmental waters in Bangladesh by direct enrichment in the intestines of adult rabbits and by conventional lab...
Shah M. Faruque, John J. Mekalanos
The identification of accessory genetic elements (plasmids, phages and chromosomal 'pathogenicity islands') encoding virulence-associated genes has facilitated our efforts to understand the origination of pathogenic microorganisms. Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae, the etiologic agent of cholera, represent...
James E. Bina, Jun Zhu, Michelle Dziejman, Shah M. Faruque et al.
Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae cause cholera, a severe diarrheal disease responsible for significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Two determinants, cholera enterotoxin (CT) and toxin coregulated pilus (TCP) are critical factors responsible for this organism's virulence. The genes for these virulenc...
Shah M. Faruque, John J. Mekalanos
Understanding the genetic and ecological factors which support the emergence of new clones of pathogenic bacteria is vital to develop preventive measures. Vibrio cholerae the causative agent of cholera epidemics represents a paradigm for this process in that this organism evolved from environmental ...
Paul Farmer, Charles Patrick Almazor, Emily T. Bahnsen, Donna Barry et al.
Meeting Cholera's Challenge to Haiti and the World: A Joint Statement on Cholera Prevention and Care
Kimberley D. Seed, Shah M. Faruque, John J. Mekalanos, Stephen B. Calderwood et al.
The Vibrio cholerae lipopolysaccharide O1 antigen is a major target of bacteriophages and the human immune system and is of critical importance for vaccine design. We used an O1-specific lytic bacteriophage as a tool to probe the capacity of V. cholerae to alter its O1 antigen and identified a novel...
Matthew K. Waldor, John J. Mekalanos
In October 1992, a non-O1 strain of Vibrio cholerae emerged as a cause of epidemic cholera in India and Bangladesh. This antigenically novel clone has been designated serogroup O139 synonym Bengal. Since its emergence, V. cholerae O139 has caused a massive cholera epidemic throughout and beyond the ...
M. Mozammel Hoque, Iftekhar Bin Naser, S. M. Nayeemul Bari, Jun Zhu et al.
Predation by bacteriophages can significantly influence the population structure of bacterial communities. Vibrio cholerae the causative agent of cholera epidemics interacts with numerous phages in the aquatic ecosystem, and in the intestine of cholera patients. Seasonal epidemics of cholera reporte...
Faizule Hassan, Muhammad Kamruzzaman, John J. Mekalanos, Shah M. Faruque
Bacterial chromosomes often carry integrated genetic elements (for example plasmids, transposons, prophages and islands) whose precise function and contribution to the evolutionary fitness of the host bacterium are unknown. The CTXφ prophage, which encodes cholera toxin in Vibrio cholerae, is known ...