Scientists at Trinity College Dublin have made a discovery which could help to develop new ways to kill the salmonella bacteria.
Salmonella causes food poisoning and kills around one million people around the world every year.
This discovery of the salmonella control gene could eventually reduce disease levels which are caused by salmonella.
The bug can survive very harsh conditions in the body which kill most germs. It does this by switching genes on and off quickly and adding outer membrane proteins to cope with the new environment. The outer membrane proteins allows salmonella to survive in salty environments and to kill people.
The research has uncovered a new mechanism used by salmonella to control outer membrane protein.
“We hope that in the future scientists will be able to use the findings to develop new ways to kill salmonella. It is an exciting step on the path of reducing the levels of salmonella and reducing human disease worldwide,” said Professor Jay Hinton, Stokes Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, Trinity College Dublin.
The research by scientists from Trinity College Dublin, the Institute of Food Research in the UK and the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology has just been published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.