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July 27, 2018
Critical Dissemination Occurs as Antibiotic "Super Gonorrhea"
Good news in the fight against the growing threat of drug-resistant "super gonorrhea": researchers from the United States Virginia University School of Medicine and their collaborators in the UK have discovered a new way that bacteria responsible for gonorrhea resist the body's immune defenses. Scientists can use this knowledge to develop vaccines or empower our immune system to eliminate a badually transmitted virus that has already conquered most antibiotics.
Alison Criss was a principal investigator of the new study, with Stephanie Ragland, a graduate student in biomedical sciences. "Whenever we think we understand how gonorrhea bacteria can survive and cause disease in humans, we are learning something new," said lead researcher Alison K. Criss. , PhD, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology of the UVA. "Our discovery is particularly exciting as it opens new avenues to counteract the growing threat of incurable gonorrhea."
Gonorrhea: widespread and dangerous
More than 78 million people contract gonorrhea each year, according to the World Health Organization with more than 800,000 of these cases reported in the United States. The badually transmitted infection has traditionally been treated with antibiotics, but the increase in drug-resistant gonorrhea has prompted the US Centers for Disease Control to label it an "urgent threat." The CDC estimates that 246,000 gonorrhea infections in the United States are resistant each year. at least one antibiotic. This is an alarming figure because gonorrhea can lead to blindness, infertility and severe infections of the heart and nervous system, even resulting in death.
New UVA research sheds light on the body's antimicrobial defenses. Gonorrhea, the scientists determined, takes a two-fist approach to neutralize lysozyme, an enzyme that degrades bacteria and is abundant in tears, saliva and other secretions at the body's sites where the gonorrhea bacterium gets itself developed. Gonorrhea produces two proteins, called inhibitors, that bind directly to lysozyme, preventing it from doing its job. Together, gonorrhea inhibitors "confer complete resistance to this abundant antimicrobial defense," AVU researchers write in a new scientific document.
When the researchers created a version of gonorrhea without both inhibitors, lysozyme killed the bacteria much more easily. Both inhibitors have been found on the surface of the gonorrhea bacteria, making them able to be recognized by the immune system. This suggests that scientists could develop drugs or vaccines to make bacteria susceptible to lysozyme, an important part of the body's natural immune defense. "It is fascinating that the gonorrhea bacterium uses two independent proteins to inhibit lysozyme, one of the main enzymes, the defenses of our body against bacteria," said the first author Stephanie Ragland, graduate student of the program. 39, graduate studies in biomedical sciences UVA. "Our discovery suggests that lysozyme resistance is key to the survival of the gonorrhea bacterium, and in the future we want to understand exactly how these lysozyme inhibitors work, and when and how bacteria release them." knowledge will help us develop new drugs or vaccines for gonorrhea, which are urgent priorities of the CDC and the World Health Organization. "
Source:
https: //news.virginia. edu / content / uva-reveals-how-super-gonorrhea-resists-immune-human system
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