Finding by researchers at the University of Manchester and National Institutes of Health have discovered ways that our immune cells are programmed to repair or protect the body, according to Infection Control Today.
Here are 10 things to note:
1. Scientists hope this new discovery will result in the development of enhanced treatments for various conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel diseases to even certain forms of cancer.
2. John Grainger, MD, head researcher from the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research, and Yasmine Belkaid, MD, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will have their work published in the journal Immunity.
3. Their work illustrates the role of monocytes, specialized immune cells made in the bone marrow and circulated in the blood stream, in repairing sites of infection and injury.
4. While monocytes are crucial in protecting the body from an infection or repairing wounds, these cells may also choose incorrect functions, resulting in severe inflammation leading to conditions like inflammatory bowel disease and cancer.
5. Dr. Grainger and his team have observed how and where monocytes are programmed in response to toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, in an effort to identify how cells decide what function to fulfill.
6. The findings show once the toxoplasma invades the gut, the tissue communicates with other parts of the body to change the immune system to fight the infection.
7. Dr. Grainger and his team essentially found your body's initial gut feeling about the infection literally tells the body systems how to proceed with protecting the body from infectious disease.
8. These findings contradict scientists' earlier predictions and therefore altered how researchers plan to reprogram the cells.
9. Researchers presently do not know enough about bone marrow to develop drugs to target programming mechanism within bone marrow.
10. Findings conducted in this study are pertinent to understand more about the bone marrow programs monocytes in order to reduce the possibility of monocytes eliciting the wrong response.
For more on infectious disease:
Discovery on how bacteria survive antibiotics—7 key notes
8 ways the whole genome sequencing is enhancing infection control
5 key notes on South Korea's MERS outbreak
