Exploiting a common weakness in enzymes could lead to a single vaccine against diarrhea-causing gut pathogens

The bacteria enterotoxigenic E. coli and Shigella together cause hundreds of millions of infections each year and are among the leading causes of diarrheal death, especially in children. Decades of vaccine development efforts have come up short, in part because the usual vaccine targets vary too much from one strain to the next. Now, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a shared biological feature of these gut pathogens that could lead to a vaccine that protects against both.