login
Become a member
Quick Registration
Full Registration Benefits -
Free Homepages for Doctors
Free Homepages for Hospitals
Free Homepages for Medical Conference
Free Homepages for NGO's
Personal Health Record Creation
Access to all Medical Slides
Access to all Jobs & Products Sale
Scientists Identify Key Mechanism Behind Childhood Respiratory Disease
By analysing samples taken from infected infants and data from laboratory-mouse experiments, scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston determined that RSV interferes with airway cells' ability to produce enzymes that keep highly damaging molecules known as reactive oxygen species under control.
The virus does this by preventing the activation of a single protein needed for the expression of a variety of detoxifying enzymes.
Reactive oxygen species then accumulate; causing cell-killing oxidative stress and inflammation in both infected and uninfected airway cells - a major factor in the damage done by RSV infection.
The discovery could lead to new therapies for RSV, which was estimated to have caused at least 3.4 million hospitalisations and 199,000 deaths among children under five worldwide in 2005.
"The role of oxidative stress has been studied in everything from aging to asthma, but this is really the first study to implicate it in lung inflammation associated with viral infections," said Antonella Casola, an associate professor at UTMB Health and lead author of the study.
The researchers followed up earlier studies in human cell cultures with experiments that showed a substantial reduction in the expression and activation of antioxidant enzymes in the lungs of RSV-infected mice.
|
|
|
 Comment & Contribute
|
Medwonders Health Network
- Health News Index
- News Quick Links
| News Categories: |
| » | Schizophrenia Drug Differentiates Cancer Stem Cells into Less Threatening Cells |
| » | Docs Who Seldom Meet Drug Reps Continue to Prescribe Drugs With FDA “Black Box” Warnings |
| » | Revision in Quality Standards for Heparin |
| » | Acne Drug Users At High Risk of Developing Eye Infections |
| » | Patients Who Take Antidepressants When in ICU More Likely to Die |
| More Drug News | |
|
