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The meeting that provided the material for this book was the 58th
Symposium of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies
(FEMS) entitled MOLECULAR PATHOGENESIS OF GASTROINTESTINAL
INFECTIONS which was held in Helsingor, Denmark from 2nd to 4th
September, 1990. The aim of this meeting was to bring together
scientists from a range of discipline- microbiology, cell biology,
molecular biology and immunology - to consider how microbes,
including parasites, colonize and infect the gastrointestinal
tract. The programme was designed to focus particular attention on
the range of strategies whereby enterovirulent bacteria and
parasites colonize the gastrointestinal mucin layer, how they
adhere to and penetrate the epithelial layer by entering the cells
or passing between them, and how various protein toxins may
facilitate these processes. Speakers were especially encouraged to
highlight the recent expansion in our knowledge of the molecular
mechanisms by which enterotoxigenic and enteropathogenic
Escherichia coli, shigellae, salmonellae and Yersinia
enterocolitica cause intestinal disease. There were also
discussions of recently-discovered gastrointestinal pathogens such
as Clostridium difficile and Helicobacter pylori as well as
accounts of how virulent determinants can be used to develop new
diagnostic methods based on DNA gene probes and the polymerase
chain reaction (PCR). These presentations provided the basis for
the chapters in this book.
A very early step in microbial colonization and pathogenesis is
that involving recog nition of the host by the microbe. In the
final analysis such recognition is due to interaction between
specific molecules on the two sides, without which host and microbe
would ignore each other. It is therefore exciting to learn the
rules that govern host-microbe interaction at to a large extent
determines whether or not we are infected by the molecular level,
which influenza virus, leishmanias, staphylococci and other
pathogens. This book is a compendium of the addresses delivered at
a symposium on molecular interaction at Porvoo, Finland in August
1991. Realizing that there are no a priori differ ences in receptor
recognition in viruses, eukaryotic parasites and bacteria, we
freely inter mingled these microbes at the symposium, and in this
book. We found the interdisciplinary discussions and comparisons
both educative and stimulating. Thus the book is divided into parts
that focus on host cell receptors, on microbial recognition
molecules and molecules that mediate microbial interaction with a
host cell receptor and, briefly, on the molecular events that
follow. Although many microbes and many cellular receptors are
missing from the book -owing to the limited duration and size of
the symposium -the articles presented here constitute an impressive
body of examples of how initial host-microbe interaction can come
about. We believe that as such the book is a useful and interesting
overview of the mechanisms and principles involved in these
interactions.
The 5th Pathogenic Neisseriae Conference was held in
Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, on 15-18 September 1986. It
followed San Francisco - USA (1978), Hemavan - Sweden (1980),
Montreal - Canada (1982), Asilomar - USA (1984). These conferences
will continue to be held in the foreseeing future. The reason for
this is because studying pathogenic Neisseriae enables research
workers to look at many aspects of bacterial infectious diseases.
These aspects include: - Epidemiology and vaccination (section 1) -
Genetic aspects of antigenic diversity (section 2) - Outer membrane
proteins and IgA-protease (section 3) - Lipopolysaccharides, H8
antigen and peptidoglycan (section ~) - The application of all this
knowledge to study pathogenesis (section 5) N. gonorrhoeae has
become an important model organism to study mucosal bacterial
infectious diseases. Basic knowledge about the bacterial surface,
gene- tics and physiology is linked to pathogenic mechanisms such
as adhesion to and invasion of epithelial cells, interaction with
complement and phagocytic cells and mucosal immune mechanisms. This
will continue to be an important research field in the near future.
N. meningitidis has become an important model organism to study the
epide- miology of potentially epidemic bacterial diseases and
against which new type of vaccines are being developed such as
outer membrane protein vaccines. The above mentioned topics are
covered by papers presented at The 5th Path- ogenic Neisseriae
Conference, 1986. I would like to thank Marijke van de Nadort
without whom it would have been much harder or even impossible to
organize such a meeting.
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