Rachael Pine
How Our Immune System
Backfires and Allows Bacteria Like Salmonella to Grow
Did you
ever think that your bodies’ defenses would ever betray you? We were always
taught that the microorganisms in our body helped with taking care of our
everyday functions, and that they helped keep us healthy. We were also told
that when we got sick that our antibodies helped keep these bacteria and
viruses at bay.
Well that
isn’t the case for this guy, researchers call him Interleukin-22 or IL-22 this
is a immune protein. Il-22 helps protect against disease causing pathogens by
separating metal ions like iron, zinc, and manganese from microbes. By doing
this it is starving them of essential nutrients so they can’t grow and become
dangerous. They still don’t understand how Salmonella escapes this and uses
IL-22 to help grow. Researchers at the University of California found that
IL-22 doesn’t protect the host against Salmonella but actually helps it grow. The
Researchers even set up an experiment with mice some who have normal IL-22 and
some who are lacking IL-22 and infected them with Salmonella. The mice that
were lacking IL-22 got sicker faster than the normal mice. So it’s clear that
whether you have a normal amount or lacking amount you will still get sick.
Isn’t that
amazing to think we have an immune protein that can make us sicker. Hopefully researchers
will find out how it gets past IL-22 and stop it from happening; along with stopping
it from helping it grow and hurting the host. At least that’s what we can all
hope for.
Nice article choice, it was really interesting. Whenever I think of immune system I always think of it hard at work protecting you from harmful microbes so you do not get sick. I would have never imagined it would actually help a person get sicker. This is really interesting because salmonella uses the protein IL-22 against your own body. This makes me wonder if other bacteria can also use that same protein to help itself grow and infect you more rapidly. Also if other bacteria that are more dangerous and harmful can do the same thing then that would be really harmful for people. The experiment that the researchers conducted on the mice was also really interesting, because even if the mice had normal IL-22 or lacking IL-22 they would end up getting sick either way. Also like you said hopefully the researchers are able to discover how the IL-22 works so they can prevent it from harming you, because that seems very dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting to read. Who knew that one single antibody like IL-22 could be so powerful in our body's natural defense system. I know that we all have special microbes and antibodies that fight off all intruders that may cause a bodily "security breach" but who knew that this little guy could be specialized? The test on the mice also seemed like it brought back some alarming results for scientists studying this. Could a person lacking this little guy in their body have the same result as the mice who did not have it? It's a scary thing to think about, but fascinating all the same.
ReplyDeleteWhen ever I think about my immune system I think off a little army keeping me healthy inside my body. Who knew that IL-22 could miss up everything. It's crazy to think that one little antibody can get you sick instead of protecting you. Hopefully they find out what causes it to act like that and they can fix it. Very interesting!
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