Role of stem cells to change immune system functioning comes under the scanner
Infectious disease specialists at the UT Southwestern Medical Center have been able to map genetic profiles of children who have been struggling against severe staphylococcus aureus infections.
Dr. Monica Ardura, instructor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study available online in PLoS One, the Public Library of Science’s online journal, said that the first-hand account of the response pattern is within the immune system. The findings were termed by Dr. Ardura as very consistent, very intense, and very reproducible.
From News-Medical.net:
Researchers used blood samples collected between 2001 and 2005 from 77 children – 53 hospitalized at Children’s Medical Center Dallas with invasive S aureus infections and 24 controls. The control samples were collected from healthy children attending either well-child clinic or undergoing elective surgical procedures. Children with underlying chronic diseases, immunodeficiency, multiple infections, and those who received steroids or other immunomodulatory therapies were excluded from the study.
The children ranged in age from a few months to 15 years and included 43 boys and 34 girls. Those with S aureus infections – both methicillin-resistant (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible (MSSA) – were matched with healthy controls for age, sex and race. The researchers also characterized the extent as well as the type of infection in each patient to make sure that the strain of bacteria didn’t influence the results.
Dr. Ardura stressed that more research is needed because the results represent a one-time snapshot of what’s going on in the cell during an invasive staphylococcal infection.
The finding is considered to have implications in obtaining access to insights as to how the human immune system gets programmed to make a response to the pathogen.
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