Infection of Campylobacter jejuni is characterized by a self-limiting diarrhea that often begins with abdominal pain which last between 2 to 10 days. I want to know the specific pathogenicity and virulence factors contributing to it
Dear colleague,
As inline with Prof Stefan,
High mortality (fragellum) evades effect from bile and allow penetratability to gut mucus.
Also, it poses a capsule- anti-phagocytic effect
Hi Christian there are quite a few virulence factors and Stefan Zimmermann
covered most of them. There are also cell adhesion factors important in colonization such as CadF which binds to fibronectin triggering a signalling process that eventually leads to cell internalisation.An often forgotten virulence factor are genes/proteins involved in bile resistance and stress conditions. Campylobacter is a fragile organism but is also very capable of surviving bile salts and heavy metals found in the GIT due to the multidrug efflux pump (cme) it harbors. It can also survive various stresses encountered along the food chain such as oxidative stress (katA, AhpC) and heat shock (dnaJ).
To be honest, there are quite a few virulence factors involved in Campylobacter pathogenicity and a lot more than has been covered here. The good news is that there are a ton of reviews that have covered this area so you won't have any issue finding more on this topic. In the meantime I recommend this excellent review:
Article Campylobacter virulence and survival factors