主页 > 医学文档 >

【bio-news】结核病的一种潜在药物靶标

一项研究说,结核菌可能依靠干细胞从而在人体建立持续的感染。科研人员已经知道结核菌通过隐藏在被感染的肺组织的称为肉芽肿的隔间里从而躲避免疫系统。尽管有健康的免疫系统的个体可以启动防御反应,在肉芽肿内部繁荣生长的这种细菌在很大程度上不会受到伤害,建立了可能致命的长期感染。Gobardhan Das及其同事研究了让这种细菌在小鼠和人类体内持续存在的免疫逃避的机制。这组作者发现,这种细菌把间充质干细胞——它们通常见于骨髓之中——吸引到被感染小鼠的脾和肺的感染部位。干细胞的外周集群巩固了这种肉芽肿,保护了结核菌免受免疫细胞的攻击。这些干细胞产生了一批免疫抑制分子,包括一氧化氮——它不仅抑制了周围的免疫细胞,也有助于遏制这种细菌的增殖。这些发现提示,结核菌可能通过不让免疫细胞接近它们并且保持肉芽肿内部细菌数量低,从而建立长期感染。这组作者提出,因此,间充质干细胞可能成为结核病的潜在药物靶标。

原文摘要
Tuberculosis (TB) is the cause of 2 million deaths each year, which is the second highest cause of mortality from a single infectious disease worldwide. Resistance of these organisms to drugs has emerged as an important health concern. Alternative approaches to the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis are therefore urgently needed. Despite the generation of robust host immune responses, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) successfully evades host immunity and establishes a persistent infection. The mechanism(s) by which M. tuberculosis manages to persist in the face of potent host immune responses remain(s) incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that M. tb suppresses T-lymphocyte responses by recruiting mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to the site of infection. We found that MSCs infiltrated tissues in mice containing M. tb organisms and T lymphocytes. We further demonstrate that MSCs suppressed T-cell responses by producing nitric oxide. Our findings reveal a key role of MSCs in the capacity of M. tb to evade host immune responses and identify these cells as unique targets for therapeutic intervention in tuberculosis.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/11/29/1007967107.abstract

阅读本文的人还阅读:

【drug-news】FDA定义“药物

【Cancer Cell】肿瘤治疗的

以嗜酸性粒细胞为靶标的

血管成像技术帮你更准确

【drug-news】抗HIV药物可能

作者:admin@医学,生命科学    2010-12-25 16:58
医学,生命科学网