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New Study Outlines New Ways to Treat Anthrax Infection
The study has been published in Microbiology.
The work could lead to new measures to treat anthrax infection in the event of a biological warfare attack.
Bacillus anthracis is a particularly lethal pathogen because it manages to escape recognition by the host's immune system by coating itself with a protective capsule around its surface. A key bacterial enzyme called capsule depolymerase (CapD) anchors the capsule to the cell surface. CapD can also cut and release some of the capsule into small fragments that are thought to interfere with specific parts of the immune system, offering further protection to the bacterium.
Scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases discovered that by engineering B. anthracis to produce higher-than-normal amounts of CapD, the protective capsule is chopped up and released as tiny fragments. The bacterium is left nearly completely unmasked and therefore vulnerable to immediate detection and destruction by the macrophage and neutrophil cells of the immune system.
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