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Bacterial Pathogens: Migration from Environmental Reservoirs to Human Host

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Abstract

The natural foci of sapronoses are characterized from the ecological point of view. Many pathogenic bacteria (Vibrio, Yersinia, Salmonella, Listeria, Escherichia, etc.), as well as conditionally pathogenic enterobacteria, are connected by a common ecological feature, the ability to exist autonomously in the external environment. The role of pathogen associations with other organisms in the formation of pathogen reservoirs is discussed. This analytical review of the current literature focuses on the role of crops and wild plants as alternative hosts for a number of pathogenic bacteria (Vibrio, Yersinia, Salmonella, Listeria, Escherichia, etc.). Experimental evidence shows that the causative agents of human and animal diseases can penetrate and multiply within tissues of many cultivated plants, the consumption of which contributes to outbreaks of foodborne infections. Novel approaches to the future minimization of this global epidemiological issue are discussed. These approaches include the search for wild plants that are resistant to enteropathogens and the construction of transgenic plant crops based on them that express antimicrobial peptides. Studies of wild plants of medical importance are described. With the use of nature-like biotechnologies, they can be used to produce new, highly active compounds that are effective against the multiresistant properties of a number of antibiotics. The results of the author’s research on the biological activity of wild-plant extracts with respect to Listeria and toxin-producing Echerichia are presented.

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  1. Gamaleya National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia

    V. I. Pushkareva

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Pushkareva, V.I. Bacterial Pathogens: Migration from Environmental Reservoirs to Human Host. Biol Bull Rev 10, 150–157 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079086420020073

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