Vibrio cholerae

Vibrio cholerae is a curved, Gram-negative bacterium that causes cholera. Its toxin-producing strains can trigger severe watery diarrhea, often after transmission through contaminated water or food.

Cholera toxin: A protein toxin produced by some Vibrio cholerae strains that drives intestinal fluid secretion. It raises cyclic AMP in intestinal cells, causing the profuse watery diarrhea of cholera.
Oral rehydration therapy: Treatment that replaces water and electrolytes using a drinkable glucose-salt solution. It prevents death from dehydration even while cholera diarrhea continues.
John Snow: A British physician whose investigation of the 1854 London cholera outbreak helped establish links between disease and contaminated water. His Broad Street investigation connected cholera spread to a polluted water source.
Gram-negative bacteria: Bacteria with a thin peptidoglycan wall and an outer membrane that stain pink in the Gram stain. V. cholerae’s outer membrane shapes its interaction with hosts and environmental stress.
Non-O1/non-O139 Vibrio cholerae: Vibrio cholerae strains outside serogroups O1 and O139, which usually do not cause epidemic cholera. These strains can cause sporadic illness but generally lack the epidemic pattern associated with O1 and O139.
Toxin-coregulated pilus: A surface pilus that helps Vibrio cholerae colonize the small intestine and regulates cholera toxin production. It supports intestinal attachment and is co-regulated with the toxin genes.
Cholera vaccine: A vaccine that lowers the risk of cholera, commonly given orally in outbreak-prone settings. Vaccination complements water and sanitation measures where exposure risk is high.
Filippo Pacini: An Italian anatomist who described the cholera bacterium in 1854. Pacini identified the organism decades before it gained broad scientific acceptance.
Vibrio: A genus of curved, motile bacteria commonly found in aquatic environments. V. cholerae belongs to this aquatic bacterial genus.
Vibrio parahaemolyticus: An aquatic Vibrio species that commonly causes gastroenteritis after people eat contaminated seafood. It causes foodborne diarrhea but is a different species from the cholera bacterium.

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