ET Food bug's 'key' found by scientists
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor SCIENTISTS have found the "key" used by the food poisoning organism, listeria, to invade, sicken and sometimes kill. A bacterium common in soil, vegetation and sewage, listeria monocytogenes can contaminate raw vegetables and ready-to-eat or processed foods requiring refrigeration. The infection mostly threatens developing foetuses, newborns, older adults and those with weakened immune systems, causing meningitis and death among 30 per cent of these patients. The discovery, reported today in the journal Science by Prof Pascale Cossart's team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, reveals that a protein on listeria's surface (internalin) interacts with a molecule on the intestine (E-cadherin), to usher the bacterium through the intestine.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001