Hidden small RNA in cholera bacterium helps determine whether it can infect humans
Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have identified a small RNA in the cholera bacterium Vibrio cholerae that plays a crucial role in its ability to infect humans. This discovery sheds light on the genetic factors that enable the bacterium to colonize the human gut, which has been a mystery for decades. The findings could lead to improved strategies for predicting and preventing cholera outbreaks.
- ▪The study reveals that a small RNA embedded within the ompU gene is key to the bacterium's ability to infect humans.
- ▪Variants of this small RNA control the expression of 85% of genes related to human infection.
- ▪Cholera strains with human-associated small RNA variants suppress biofilm formation, allowing them to evade the immune system.
Phys.org files mainly under science. We currently carry 1,272 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
inspect →
Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | Phys.org |
| Canonical URL | https://phys.org/news/2026-05-hidden-small-rna-cholera-bacterium.html |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 17:00:01 EDT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-16T21:05:19.014Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-16T21:05:19.014Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | AohkwU5XjeaO |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
May 16, 2026 Hidden small RNA in cholera bacterium helps determine whether it can infect humans by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Andrew Zinin Lisa Lock Scientific Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Andrew Zinin Lead Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Editors' notes This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread The GIST Add as preferred source The ompU ORF encodes a modular porin and sRNA. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-73137-6 Scientists from St.
…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Phys.org.