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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Researchers say theyve made a discovery that could help in the development of new treatments for serious infections.
Flesh-eating or Strep bacteria are able to survive and spread in the body by degrading a key immune defense molecule, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
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A Streptococcus bacteria cause a wide range of diseases from Strep throat to flesh eating bacteria and toxic shock syndrome. When Step enters the body it produces a large amount of a protease known as SpyCEP. SpyCEP sends signals that de-activate an immune defense molecule that controls specialized infection fighting white blood cells called netrophils.
The team of researchers discovered by knocking out the gene that encodes SpyCEP, they were able to stop the Strep bacteria.
Lacking this single protease, the mutant Strep strain was easily killed by human netrophils, said lead study author Annelies Zinkernagel, M.D., a postgraduate research in the UCSD department of pediatrics. In addition, the mutant Strep bacteria no longer produced a spreading infection when injected into the skin of experimental mice.
Senior study author Victor Nizet, M.D., UC San Diego professor of pediatrics and pharmacy and an infectious disease physician at Rady Childrens Hospital suggested that these findings could lead to new ways of treating Strep infections. In addition to trying to kill the bacteria directly with standard antibiotics new treatment strategies could be targeted to inhibit the Strep protease and thereby disarm the pathogen, making it susceptible to clearance by our normal immune defenses, Nizet was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: Cell Host & Microbe, August 14, 2008
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