Improved porcine model for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli infection by deprivation of colostrum feeding in newborn piglets.

Porcine edema disease (ED) is a toxemia caused by enteric infection with Shiga toxin 2e (Stx2e)-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). ED occurs most frequently during the weaning period and is manifested as emaciation associated with high mortality. In our experimental infection with a specific STEC strain, we failed to cause the suppression of weight gain in piglets, which is a typical symptom of ED, in two consecutive experiments. Therefore, we examined the effects of deprivation of colostrum on the sensitivity of newborn piglets to STEC infection. Neonatal pigs were categorized into two groups: one fed artificial milk instead of colostrum in the first 24 h after birth and then returned to the care of their mother, the other breastfed by a surrogate mother until weaning. The oral challenge with 1011  colony-forming units of virulent STEC strain on days 25, 26 and 27 caused suppression of weight gain and other ED symptoms in both groups, suggesting that colostrum deprivation from piglets was effective in enhancing susceptibility to STEC. Two successive STEC infection experiments using colostrum-deprived piglets reproduced this result, leading us to conclude that this improved ED piglet model is more sensitive to STEC infection than the previously established models.

Enhanced resistance to blast fungus and bacterial blight in transgenic rice constitutively expressing OsSBP, a rice homologue of mammalian selenium-binding proteins.

The rice Oryza sativa selenium-binding protein homologue (OsSBP) gene encodes a homologue of mammalian selenium-binding proteins, and it has been isolated as one of the genes induced by treating a plant with a cerebroside elicitor from rice blast fungus. The possible role of OsSBP in plant defense was evaluated by using a transgenic approach. Plants overexpressing OsSBP showed enhanced resistance to a virulent strain of rice blast fungus as well as to rice bacterial blight. The expression of defense-related genes and the accumulation of phytoalexin after infection by rice blast fungus were accelerated in the OsSBP overexpressors. A higher level of H(2)O(2) accumulation and reduced activity of such scavenging enzymes as ascorbate peroxidase and catalase were seen when the OsSBP-overexpressing plants were treated with the protein phosphatase 1 inhibitor, calyculin A. These results suggest that the upregulation of OsSBP expression conferred enhanced tolerance to different pathogens, possibly by increasing plant sensitivity to endogenous defense responses. Additionally, the OsSBP protein might have a role in modulating the defense mechanism to biotic stress in rice.