Toxoplasma It is one of the most successful parasites worldwide. Hundreds of millions or more people are infected with it, often without their knowledge. We are only intermediate hosts, the pathogen can only reproduce in cats, who spread it over and over again. It is not yet clear whether it harms us, but there are increasing signs that it makes us more susceptible to neurological and psychiatric disorders.. Arne ten Hoeve from Stockholm University and his team Described in “Host Cell and Microbe” How Toxoplasma hijacks immune cells and sends them on a journey through the body.
T. Gundy Accordingly, it injects a special protein into the nucleus of the phagocytic immune cell and thus changes its identity, so to speak: it is reprogrammed so that the immune cell no longer behaves like a part of the immune system, but like a different type of dendritic cell. The cells affected in this way then move very quickly through the body and thus reach the brain and other organs, which the body’s defenses may try to block.
“It is amazing that the parasite is able to hijack the identity of immune cells in such a clever way. We think the findings may explain why Toxoplasma “It spreads efficiently through the body when infecting humans and animals,” says co-author Antonio Barragan.
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