Nano-Syringe: How Bacteria Outwit The Immune System
Sunday, June 13, 2010 - 15:01
in Health & Medicine
Each day the humans are confronted with a variety of pathogens. Most of them are fended off by our immune system. For a successful infection, bacteria must deliver so-called virulence factors through a transport channel located in the bacterial membrane. Scientists from the Max Planck Society and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing have shown how in some bacteria this transport channel is formed like a syringe, enabling them to inject virulence factors directly into the host cell - an important starting point for the development of new drugs that might interfere considerably earlier than antibiotics in the course of infection. read more