Provided are delivery immunostimulatory bacteria that have enhanced colonization of tumors, the tumor microenvironment and/or tumor-resident immune cells, and enhanced anti-tumor activity. The immunostimulatory bacteria are modified by deletion of genes encoding the flagella, or by modification of the genes so that functional flagella are not produced, and/or are modified by deletion of pagP or modification of pagP to produce inactive PagP product. As a result, the immunostimulatory bacteria are flagellin.sup. and/or pagP.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria optionally have additional genomic modifications so that the bacteria are adenosine or purine auxotrophs. The bacteria optionally are one or more of asd.sup., purI.sup., and msbB.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria, such as Salmonella species, are modified to encode immunostimulatory proteins that confer anti-tumor activity in the tumor microenvironment, and/or are modified so that the bacteria preferentially infect immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, or tumor-resident immune cells, and/or are modified to induce less cell death in immune cells than in other cells. Also provided are methods of inhibiting the growth or reducing the volume of a solid tumor by administering the immunostimulatory bacteria.

Process of inhibiting microbial biofilm formation using extracellular metabolite composition from Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 and composition comprising from about 61% w/w of thymol, about 38% w/w of monolaurin and about 1% w/w of magnolol obtained from supercritical fluid extracts of Magnolia officinalis is described.

A recombinant bacterium capable of reducing tumor growth is provided, wherein said recombinant bacterium is capable of: a. increased expression of a nucleic acid encoding a chemoreceptor that directs chemotaxis towards tumors, b. accumulation in a quiescent tumor, c. hyper-invasion of a tumor, d. reduced fitness in normal tissue, e. enhanced stimulation of the host innate immune responses, f. delivering a tumor specific DNA vaccine vector to a tumor cell, and g. increased bacterium-induced host programmed cell death.

Method of extracting a partially purified extracellular metabolite composition from Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 and its antimicrobial effects thereof are described.

A vaccine for treating Salmonella enteriditis that includes an immunogenically effective amount of a Salmonella enteritidis protein InvG, and optionally a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier is described. Methods of using compositions that include the Salmonella Enteritidis protein InvG or a delivery vector that expresses Salmonella Enteritidis protein InvG for immunizing poultry against Salmonella Enteritidis are also described.

The present invention relates to a modified bacterium with anti-tumor activity, which comprises an essential gene expression cassette under the control of a strictly hypoxia inducible promoter and is deficient in at least one gene involved in or regulating the endogenous anti-oxidative stress response pathway or a functional expression product thereof. The present invention also relates to a pharmaceutical composition comprising the modified bacterium and anti-tumor use thereof.

Every year, approximately 94 million cases of Salmonella gastroenteritis, with 155000 deaths, are reported each year and 85% of them reported to be food-borne. Investigation of the foods whether they are clean for Salmonella and sensitivity, easy applicability, absence of false positivity and negativity and the speed are the features sought in the analysis method for this investigation. It is not desirable for analysis to detect the presence of dead bacteria in food. Although the final product does not contain microbiologically harmful live bacteria during the food process, the detection of dead bacteria transmitted before the process causes the food product to be unfairly diagnosed as harmful. To prevent this situation, the analysis kits depending on molecular methods, increase their microorganism detection levels up to to 10.sup.4 while reducing their sensitivity. Since the molecular methods cannot discriminate dead and live organisms, a confirmation test is required to prove that the positive result of the analysis belongs to the live bacteria in the food, which results in additional cost and time loss. In the same way, it is necessary to verify whether the colonies that grow in the gold standard culture method, belong to Salmonella bacteria. In the developed system; 10.sup.5 dead bacterial DNA is eliminated in the food to prevent false positive results and the minimum detection limit is 10 bacteria. Also, in developed system, 4 primers specific to 6 regions of DNA are used. Therefore, the specificity of the method is very high (99.9%) and no verification test is needed. Since PCR systems require a device with complex temperature control units, they can make analysis in a laboratory-dependent manner. In the proposed system, DNA is amplified at constant temperature; no temperature cycle is required, therefore no complex instrument and laboratory infrastructure are required. All the procedures can be easily performed outside the laboratory on a portable mini-heater where pre-enrichment, DNA isolation from the sample and PCR steps are performed. For molecular analyses, the device is required to display the result of imaging or analysis. In the developed method, DNAs amplified by the loop-mediated isothermal DNA amplification method, are hybridized and combined with the labeled probe and then can be read by lateral flow method with the naked eye. As the results are visible by eye, no additional device is required. The classical culture method is accepted as the gold standard, but the duration of analysis is 7 days for positive samples, 3 days with verification test, for the molecular methods, and 5.5 hours including pre-enrichment time

Provided are delivery immunostimulatory bacteria that have enhanced colonization of tumors, the tumor microenvironment and/or tumor-resident immune cells, and enhanced anti-tumor activity. The immunostimulatory bacteria are modified by deletion of genes encoding the flagella, or by modification of the genes so that functional flagella are not produced, and/or are modified by deletion of pagP or modification of pagP to produce inactive PagP product. As a result, the immunostimulatory bacteria are flagellin.sup. and/or pagP.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria optionally have additional genomic modifications so that the bacteria are adenosine or purine auxotrophs. The bacteria optionally are one or more of asd.sup., purI.sup., and msbB.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria, such as Salmonella species, are modified to encode immunostimulatory proteins that confer anti-tumor activity in the tumor microenvironment, and/or are modified so that the bacteria preferentially infect immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, or tumor-resident immune cells, and/or are modified to induce less cell death in immune cells than in other cells. Also provided are methods of inhibiting the growth or reducing the volume of a solid tumor by administering the immunostimulatory bacteria.

Described in several example embodiments herein are engineered programmable pattern recognition compositions and uses thereof. In an embodiment, the engineered protein contains an NTPase of a Signal Transduction ATPases with Numerous-associated Domains (STAND) superfamily (STAND NTPase), comprising a pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) recognition activity, wherein the STAND NTPase and the PAMP recognition activity are derived from the same or different prokaryotes.

Provided are bacterial strains, methods of culturing bacterial cells using synthetic quorum-regulated lysis, and uses thereof. For example, the present disclosure describes methods of maintaining a co-culture by quorum sensing. These methods comprise co-culturing at least a first bacterial strain and a second bacterial strain during a period of time of at least 12 hours.