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Results for Yersinia enterocolitica
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Bacteria that causes Yersinia enterocolitis, contracted from contaminated food or water. Symptoms of infection often mimic acute appendicitis and are most common in children younger than age 7. A sister bacteria, Yersinia pestis, was the cause of the historic bubonic plague.
A bacterium that causes yersiniosis.
| Yersinia enterocolitica | ||||||||||||||
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 Yersinia enterocolitica colonies growing on XLD agar
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| Yersinia enterocolitica (Schleifstein & Coleman 1939) |
Yersinia enterocolitica is a species of gram-negative coccobacillus-shaped bacterium, belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. Primarily a zoonotic disease (cattle, deer, pigs, and birds), animals which recover frequently become asymptomatic carriers of the disease.[1]
Acute Y. enterocolitica infections produce severe diarrhea in humans, along with Peyer's patch necrosis, chronic lymphadenopathy, and hepatic or splenic abscesses. Additional symptoms may include entero-colitis, fever, mesenteric adenitis, erythema nodosum and acute terminal ileitis, which may be confused with appendicitis or Crohn's disease. See yersiniosis for further details.
Treatment of Y. enterocolitica infections requires aggressive antibiotic therapy, typically involving a combination of chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and polymyxin.[1]
Y. enterocolitica infections are sometimes followed by chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis.[2]
Y. enterocolitica seems to be associated with autoimmune Graves-Basedow thyroiditis.[3] Whilst indirect evidence exists, direct causative evidence is limited,[4] and Y. enterocolitica is probably not a major cause of this disease, but may contribute to the development of thyroid autoimmunity arising for other reasons in genetically susceptible individuals.[5] It has also been suggested that Y. enterocolitica infection is not the cause of auto-immune thyroid disease, but rather is only an associated condition; with both having a shared inherited susceptibility.[6] More recently the role for Y. enterocolitica has been disputed.[7]
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Copyrights:
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 | Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Medical Dictionary. The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Yersinia enterocolitica". Read more |
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