The invention relates to a live vaccine for protection against enteric bacterial infection.

The present disclosure relates to genetically modified strains of Salmonella, engineered to be tumor navigating, self-eradicating, and armed with TRAIL to trigger tumor cell apoptosis. Also provided herein are methods of producing and methods of using such genetically modified Salmonella strains to treat cancer.

The present invention relates to a method of preparing a live attenuated vaccine by irradiation and a live attenuated vaccine composition prepared by the same, and more particularly, a method of preparing a live attenuated vaccine by irradiation including irradiating a pathogenic microorganism with a dose of 0.5 to 2 kGy of radiation per single radiation six to fifteen times; and a live attenuated vaccine composition including a pathogenic microorganism attenuated to not be revertant to a wild type by generation of at least one mutation of nucleotide insertion and nucleotide deletion by irradiation.

Provided are modified STING proteins that have constitutive activity, and also can have lower NF-κB signaling activity compared to unmodified human STING. Combinations and compositions containing the modified STING proteins with immunostimulatory proteins also are provided. Also provided are immunostimulatory bacteria that encode the STING proteins and the combinations, where the immunostimulatory proteins are encoded as a polycistronic message. The immunostimulatory bacteria have genomes that are modified to, for example, reduce toxicity and improve the anti-tumor activity, such as by increasing accumulation in the tumor microenvironment, particularly in tumor-resident myeloid cells, improving resistance to complement inactivation, reducing immune cell death, promoting adaptive immunity, and enhancing T-cell function. The increase in colonization of phagocytic cells improves the delivery of encoded therapeutic products to the tumor micro environment and tumors, and permits, among other routes, systemic administration of the immunostimulatory bacteria.

Disclosed herein are methods and kits for quantifying the presence of a microorganism in a sample. Specifically, disclosed are methods for quantifying a pathogen in a sample, such as a food sample, to determine if the levels of pathogen present in the sample are within an acceptable range.

The present disclosure relates to genetically modified strains of Salmonella, engineered to be tumor navigating, self-eradicating, and armed with decoy polypeptides that bind endogenous ligand and block activation of signal transduction cascades associated with cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth. Also provided herein are methods of producing and methods of using such genetically modified Salmonella strains to treat cancer.

Provided is application of genetically engineered bacteria VNP20009-M in preparation of drugs for preventing and treating malignant sarcoma.

The present disclosure relates to a PCR detection kit for rapidly identifying Salmonella of specific serotypes. The kit includes primers for detecting tcpS gene, the primers for detecting the tcpS gene including a forward primer having a nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO. 1 and a reverse primer having a nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO. 2. The kit can identify Salmonella of enteritidis, pullorum/gallinarum, and dublin serotypes rapidly and in a high throughput, which can be used as an auxiliary method for the conventional serotyping of Salmonella.

Provided are immunostimulatory bacteria with genomes that are modified to, for example, reduce toxicity and improve the anti-tumor activity, such as by increasing accumulation in the tumor microenvironment, particularly in tumor-resident myeloid cells, improving resistance to complement inactivation, reducing immune cell death, promoting adaptive immunity, and enhancing T-cell function. Also provided are immunostimulatory bacteria for use as vaccines, and for delivery of mRNA. The immunostimulatory bacterium comprise genome modifications resulting in an increase in colonization of phagocytic cells, which delivers encoded therapeutic products to phagocytic cells, and permits, among other routes, systemic administration of the immunostimulatory bacteria. The increase in colonization of phagocytic cells also provides for use of immunostimulatory bacteria for direct tissue administration for use as vaccines.

Provided are immunostimulatory bacteria and pharmaceutical compositions containing the bacteria. The immunostimulatory bacteria provided herein contain one or more modalities that enhance the anti-tumor activity of the immunostimulatory bacteria. Among the immunostimulatory bacteria provided are bacteria, such as Salmonella species, which are modified to be auxotrophic or are auxotrophic for adenosine and/or contain plasmids encoding RNAi, such as shRNA and microRNA, that mediate gene disruption and/or expression of immune checkpoints, such as TREX1, VISTA, PD-L1 and, genes that influence the immune system. The bacteria contain additional modifications to enhance their anti-tumor activity. Also provided are methods of inhibiting the growth or reducing the volume of a solid tumor by administering the pharmaceutical compositions.