SZhangJerry

SZhangJerry is a nickname of a Chinese internet user. Rumor has it that he/she has connection to Jerry the mouse in the cartoon Tom and Jerry.

Citrobacter rodentium

Citrobacter rodentium is a Gram-negative enteric bacterium whose cognate host is mice where it causes transmissible murine colonic hyperplasia, and is responsible for high mortality in suckling mice (Barthold et al., 1978; Schauer & Falkow, 1993; Schauer et al., 1995). Citrobacter species are widely distributed in nature, frequently present in soil and water, and can be readily isolated from human and animal faeces. However, unlike the host-adapted C. rodentium that causes gastrointestinal disease, the other Citrobacter species are opportunistic pathogens that cause a variety of extraintestinal infections (Luperchio & Schauer, 2001). Although disease caused by C. rodentium has been observed primarily in mice, this bacterium has also been reported to cause disease with a high rate of fatality in other rodents (de la Puente-Redondo et al., 1999). There are no reports of C. rodentium being pathogenic to humans.

C. rodentium is a member of the attaching and effacing (A/E) family of bacterial pathogens, which is characterised by intimate bacterial adherence to host intestinal epithelial cells, effacement of microvilli, and reorganisation of the host actin cytoskeleton to form pedestal-like extensions of epithelial cells beneath the adherent bacteria called A/E lesions (Wales et al., 2005). Gastrointestinal colonisation and formation of A/E lesions is mediated by a pathogenicity island called the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE), which is conserved among A/E bacteria (Deng et al., 2001; Wales et al., 2005). C. rodentium is unique amongst Citrobacter species in possessing the LEE (Schauer & Falkow, 1993; Schauer et al., 1995). As the only known A/E pathogen to naturally infect mice, it is a valuable model organism for the study of pathogenesis of the clinically significant human pathogens, enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC).