Researchers work to combat E. coli

WASHINGTON (WJRT) (WJRT) -- (09/26/06)-- Researchers studying a virus that's a natural enemy of E. coli say it could help prevent outbreaks like the one spreading across the country.

Researchers at Washington's Evergreen State College say they've found a natural way to kill e-coli bacteria.

they discovered it when their students were studying e-coli in sheep. "Every time they tried to infect the sheep with the E. coli, the sheep seemed within two days to be perfectly happy and they couldn't find the bacteria. They had some natural resistance," said researcher Andrew Brabban

The cause of the sheep's resistance turned out to be a virus called a phage, that kills an E. coli cell by reproducing inside it, then exploding it to get out. "A phage is a virus that specifically infects a bacterium so it can't infect people and it can't infect animals and it can't infect plants. And not only that, but each phage only infects particular kinds of bacteria," explained Betty Kutter, another researcher at the school.

As both researchers wrote in the journal "Applied and Environmental Microbiology," the virus kills disease-causing E. coli in bacteria samples in the lab. Their goal is to develop a virus cocktail that eliminates the bacteria at its source - in the intestines of livestock.

"We'd simply give it to them in their food or in their drinking water," Brabban said.

But since the virus works so well outside the animals, Brabban says it may be possible to use it to treat fresh produce before it can be used to treat animals.

In August, the food and drug administration approved the first-ever virus treatment to kill a different bacteria,  listeria, on fresh foods.

Researchers say because it takes so few E. coli bacteria to cause disease,  the challenge of developing a similar treatment against E. coli  is to make sure it kills all  the bacteria,  whether in animals or on fresh foods.

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