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Vibrio vulnificus (V. vulnificus) is halophilic marine
bacterium causing primary septicemia, and wound infections with
or without secondary septicemia. Primary septicemia is acquired
mainly by ingestion of raw or undercooked seafood, whereas
wound infections are caused by exposure of a wound to seawater
or shellfish products. Septicemia caused by V. vulnificus is
frequently fulminant and of high mortality rate. V. vulnificus
isolate. In iron dextran-treated mice V. vulnificus
infections, the effects of iron dextran treatment upon
multiplication of this microorganism in mouse serum, whole
blood, and the bloodstream, were examined. Iron overload status
resulted in enhanced growth of V. vulnificus in the serum and
the blood, both in vivo and ex vivo. In addition, V. vulnificus
was cleared from the bloodstream of an untreated mouse more
rapidly than that of an iron-loaded mouse after intravascular
injection of the bacteria TNF-α was detectable in serum only
when V. vulnificus has multiplied to about 10^4~10^5/ml.
Infection of mice with live V. vulnificus at 3×10^5 CFU, but
not 3×10^3 CFU, DNA fragmentation in 200 base-pair ladder
form, a characteristic of apoptosis, of the thymocytes.
Infection of iron-overloaded mice with 3×10^2 CFU of live V.
vulnificus also induced DNA fragmentation of the thymocytes.
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