Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a natural lipid used by a disease-causing bacterium to impair the host immune response. Naturally occurring lipids assist Francisella tularensis bacteria to suppress host inflammation and cause tularemia in mice and humans. It spreads to humans via contact with an infected animal or through the bite of a mosquito, tick or deer fly. Antibiotics are efficient against this life-threatening disease. However, it is difficult to diagnose it as F.
tularensis bacteria can suppress the human immune response system. The researchers from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases found a form of the lipid i.e. phosphatidylethanolamine, or PE that reduces the inflammation caused by both tularemia bacteria and dengue fever virus. This is so because the composition of PE found in F. tularensis differs from PE…
