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Bacillus cereus is a spore-forming foodborne pathogen responsible for diarrheal and emetic types of food poisoning. Intoxication is caused by various enterotoxins or by emetic toxin. Because of its widespread presence and the ability to form heat-stable endospores in a relatively short time, B. cereus has been difficult to control. In this study, 21 rice and 36 Sunsik (a mixture of powdered raw grains) samples were examined for the prevalence of B. cereus. A multiplex PCR assay was used ,to evaluate the distribution of 10 different toxigenicity-related genes among 1,082 B. cereus strains isolated from dried red ,peppers (919 isolates), rice (98 isolates), and Sunsik (65 isolates). The results suggest that (i) the examined foods were free of the emetic toxin but not free of enterotoxins and (ii) the distribution of enterotoxigenic genes was significantly different among the B. cereus isolates from various sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The virulent bacteriophage EPS7 active against a number of Salmonella serovar and Escherichia coli strains, isolated from the local sewage in Korea, belongs to the family Siphoviridae. The ESP7 genome constitutes a linear double-stranded DNA of 111 382 bp. DNA sequencing and genomic analysis of EPS7 showed that it belongs to the phage T5 family. We identified the EPS7 genes involved in DNA repair, replication, viral structure and bacterial lysis by comparing the EPS7 genome with that of T5. In contrast, the tail genes encoding for putative host receptor-binding protein and the putative receptor-blocking lipoprotein precursor of EPS7 exhibit high homologies with the corresponding gene products of BF23, another member of the T5-family. BF23 binds to BtuB, a surface receptor in the host and involved in vitamin B12 uptake, but its infection is independent of TonB. By constructing a series of deletion mutants in Salmonella and in E. coli and studying phage infection in the mutant hosts, we showed that BtuB is also the host receptor of the phage EPS7. Whether EPS7 infection depends on TonB needs to be further studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]