Plants As Alternative Hosts For Human And Animal Pathogens

Many of the most prevalent and devastating human and animal pathogens have part of their lifecycle out-with the animal host. These pathogens have a remarkably wide capacity to adapt to a range of quite different environments: physical, chemical and biological, which is part of the key to their success. Many of the well-known pathogens that are able to jump between hosts in different biological kingdoms are transmitted through the faecal-oral and direct transmission pathways, and as such have become important food-borne pathogens. Some high-profile examples include fresh produce-associated outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica. Other pathogens may be transmitted via direct contact or aerosols are include important zoonotic pathogens. It is possible to make a broad division between those pathogens that are passively transmitted via vectors and need the animal host for replication (e.g. virus and parasites), and those that are able to actively interact with alternative hosts, where they can proliferate (e.g. the enteric bacteria). This research topic will focus on plants as alternative hosts for human pathogens, and the role of plants in their transmission back to humans. The area is particularly exciting because it opens up new aspects to the biology of some microbes already considered to be very well characterised. One aspect of cross-kingdom host colonisation is in the comparison between the hosts and how the microbes are able to use both common and specific adaptations for each situation. The area is still in relative infancy and there are far more questions than answers at present. We aim to address important questions underlying the interactions for both the microbe and plant host in this research topic.

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Globalization of the food supply has created conditions favorable for the emergence, reemergence, and spread of food-borne pathogens-compounding the challenge of anticipating, detecting, and effectively responding to food-borne threats to health. In the United States, food-borne agents affect 1 out of 6 individuals and cause approximately 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year. This figure likely represents just the tip of the iceberg, because it fails to account for the broad array of food-borne illnesses or for their wide-ranging repercussions for consumers, government, and the food industry-both domestically and internationally. A One Health approach to food safety may hold the promise of harnessing and integrating the expertise and resources from across the spectrum of multiple health domains including the human and veterinary medical and plant pathology communities with those of the wildlife and aquatic health and ecology communities. The IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop on December 13 and 14, 2011 that examined issues critical to the protection of the nation's food supply. The workshop explored existing knowledge and unanswered questions on the nature and extent of food-borne threats to health. Participants discussed the globalization of the U.S. food supply and the burden of illness associated with foodborne threats to health; considered the spectrum of food-borne threats as well as illustrative case studies; reviewed existing research, policies, and practices to prevent and mitigate foodborne threats; and, identified opportunities to reduce future threats to the nation's food supply through the use of a "One Health" approach to food safety. Improving Food Safety Through a One Health Approach: Workshop Summary covers the events of the workshop and explains the recommendations for future related workshops.

Following the success of this Research Topic http://journal.frontiersin.org/ researchtopic/3298/regulation-of-gene-expression-in-enteropathogenic-bacteria, we are happy to launch a second edition of the project. Pathogenic bacteria have evolved numerous strategies to survive in and to attack hosts, which can be reflected by transcriptional and posttranscriptional changes in specific genes especially including those encoding virulence determinants. Regulation of gene expression by regulatory proteins and non-coding RNAs enables the pathogens to adapt their metabolic needs and to coordinately express virulence determinants during different stages of infection.

& Quot;Animal Science Reviews 2010" provides scientists and students in animal science with timely analysis on key topics in current research. Originally published online in "CAB Reviews," this volume makes available in printed form the reviews in animal science published during 2010.

& Quot;Plant Sciences Reviews 2010" provides scientists and students in the field with timely analysis on key topics in current research. Originally published online in "CAB Reviews," this volume makes available in printed form the reviews in plant sciences published during 2010.

Throughout the food processing chain and after ingestion by the host, food associated bacteria have to cope with a range of stress factors such as thermal and/or non-thermal inactivation treatments, refrigeration temperatures, freeze-drying, high osmolarity, acid pH in the stomach or presence of bile salts in the intestine, that threaten bacterial survival. The accompanying plethora of microbial response and adaptation phenomena elicited by these stresses has important implications for food technology and safety. Indeed, while resistance development of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms may impose health risks for the consumer and impart great economic losses to food industries, reduced survival of probiotic bacteria may strongly compromise their claimed health benefit attributes. As a result, substantial research efforts have been devoted in the last decades to unravel the mechanisms underlying stress response and resistance development in food associated microorganisms in order to better predict and improve (i) the inactivation of foodborne pathogens and spoilage microorganisms on the one hand and (ii) the robustness and performance of beneficial microorganisms on the other. Moreover, the recent implementation of system-wide omics and (single-)cell biology approaches is greatly boosting our insights into the modes of action underlying microbial inactivation and survival. This Research Topic aims to provide an avenue for dissemination of recent advances within the field of microbial stress response and adaptation, with a particular focus not only on food spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms but also on beneficial microbes in foods.