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November 12, 2019 10:00 am
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XYCdgdoG51c/study-reveals-how-two-strains-of-one-bacterium-combine-to-cause-flesh-eating-infection
Study Reveals How Two Strains of One Bacterium Combine To Cause Flesh-Eating Infection
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A new study by a team of scientists that included researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Texas Medical Branch used genetic analysis to reveal how two different strains of a single species of flesh-eating bacteria worked in concert to become more dangerous than either one strain alone. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 11, 2019. [...] The original infection -- cultured from a patient who developed the severe flesh-eating disease known as necrotizing fasciitis -- was diagnosed as a monomicrobial disease. Traditional diagnostics could only determine that the infection was caused by a single species of bacteria called Aeromonas hydrophila. But the disease baffled clinicians when it rapidly turned deadly, requiring a quadruple amputation to save the patient's life. Through genetic analysis of the culture, Rita Colwell, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and a co-author of the study, and her team discovered important differences among the individual bacterial cultures that could not be detected through standard diagnostic methods. In two previous papers, Colwell and her colleagues isolated and identified two genetically distinct strains of the bacteria that caused the infection. They labeled those strains necrotizing fasciitis 1 (NF1) and necrotizing fasciitis 2 (NF2). In laboratory studies, neither strain produced a deadly infection on its own. But when the strains were combined, the resulting infection became deadly. In the current study, the researchers manipulated the genetic components of each strain. When they swapped the genetic components that varied between the strains, the team was able to make NF1 behave more like NF2 and visa versa. By testing the mutant strains in mice, the team determined how the genetic variations affected each strain's ability to cause infection and interact with the other strain. The three studies combined paint a clear picture of how NF1 and NF2 behave both in separate infections and when combined. In single-strain infections, NF1 remains localized, does not spread to the bloodstream or organs and is cleared by the host immune system. NF2, however, produces a toxin that breaks down muscle tissue and allows it to spread to the bloodstream or organs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XYCdgdoG51c/study-reveals-how-two-strains-of-one-bacterium-combine-to-cause-flesh-eating-infection
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