摘要：在细菌的世界中，有一种堪称“杀手”的蛭弧菌，它能攻击并消灭许多其他细菌。英国一项最新研究显示，动物可以通过口服蛭弧菌的方式来消灭肠道中会引起疾病的沙门氏菌，且未见副作用。
沙门氏菌
英国诺丁汉大学的研究人员在美国新一期《应用与环境微生物学》杂志上报告说，他们利用感染了沙门氏菌的鸡进行了实验。沙门氏菌是能引起一些动物和人类肠道疾病的细菌，人感染沙门氏菌后会出现头痛、腹泻等症状，严重时会死亡。
研究人员先让一些鸡感染沙门氏菌，然后让其口服蛭弧菌，结果鸡体内的沙门氏菌很快就被消灭了90%。与此同时，研究人员还让一些健康的鸡也服用了蛭弧菌，结果没有发现有什么副作用。
参与研究的劳拉·霍布利说，蛭弧菌不会在鸡体内长期生存，观察显示它主要在口服后48小时内生效，两天后效果就大幅下降。这说明如果用它来完全消灭沙门氏菌，可能要设计一个多次口服疗程。不过，本次研究证明口服蛭弧菌既安全又有效。
据介绍，蛭弧菌不仅可以消灭沙门氏菌，还可以杀死大肠杆菌等多种致病细菌，应用前景较为广泛。
以前曾有一些研究关注蛭弧菌的杀菌能力，但多用于器物或体表杀菌，本次研究首次探索了蛭弧菌在生物体内的杀菌效果。在目前许多病菌对药物产生耐药性的情况下，这种利用天然生物“以菌治菌”的方法，提供了对抗病菌的新手段。
生物探索推荐英文论文摘要：
Studying the effects of orally administered Bdellovibrio on the wellbeing and Salmonella colonization of young chicks
ABSTRACT
Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is a bacterium which preys upon and kills Gram-negative bacteria, including the zoonotic pathogens E. coli and Salmonella. Bdellovibrio has potential as a biocontrol agent but no reports of it being tested in living animals have been published, nor data on whether Bdellovibrio might spread between animals. In this study we tried to fill this knowledge gap, using B. bacteriovorus HD100 doses in poultry with a normal gut microbiota or pre-dosed with a colonising Salmonella strain, in both cases Bdellovibrio were dosed orally along with antacids. After dosing non-Salmonella infected birds with Bdellovibrio, we measured the health and well-being of the birds and any changes in their gut pathology and culturable microbiota, finding that although a Bdellovibrio dose at 2 days of age altered the overall diversity of the natural gut microbiota in 28 day old birds, there were no adverse effects on their growth and well-being. Sampling drinking water and faecal matter from the pens in which the birds were housed as groups, showed no contamination of these by Bdellovibrio after dosing. Predatory Bdellovibrio orally administered to birds that had been pre-dosed with a gut-colonising Salmonella Enteritidis PT4 strain (an important zoonotic pathogen), significantly reduced Salmonella numbers in bird gut caecal contents, and reduced caecal inflammation and abnormal caecal morphology compared with the untreated controls or a non-predatory 
pilA strain, suggesting that these effects were due to predatory action. This work is a first step to applying Bdellovibrio therapeutically in other animal, and possibly human, infections.
