Dormant bacteria may be chief culprit of diseases

Recent DNA sequencing method reveals that, per milliliter of blood contains about 1,000 bacterial cells. These bacteria are usually dormant. But they can be woke up when the blood iron is made use of by bacteria and begin to secrete lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This molecule will cover on the cell wall and the immune system will recognize it and inflammation happens.

Douglas Kell from University of Manchester and Resia Pretorius from University of Pretoria in South Africa wonder whether LPS also directly causes blood clotting. The most of the bacteria which are dormant in the blood come from the intestinal tract. Through research using recombinant dog proteins, the researchers found that the bacteria mix E. coli LPS which is common in intestinal bacteria with fibrinogen, and such small clot protein would form grumous fibrinogen bracket. LPS changes fibrinogen to make it form abnormal clots that are similar to the clots causing heart disease, stroke and the formation of deep vein thrombosis.

Researchers believe that LPS makes fibrinogen, and this deformation will spread in the protein. This is very similar to the way of prion protein deformation which causes BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Since LPS can induce inflammation, so it will increase the blood levels of fibrinogen, thus further increasing the risk of diseases associated with blood clots. Overactive blood clotting is also the characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. These diseases are related to high iron content. Our body generally maintains the iron content in the blood at a low level so that bacteria are dormant, thus inhibiting their growth.

They observed that LPS causes the formation of fibrin mat and it will bind to many other proteins. So this means that in other inflammatory diseases, it is related to the formation of amyloid protein mat, such as the condition occurs in the brains of patients with Alzheimer disease and Parkinson's disease. Earlier this year, other researchers found that after injecting bacteria to the brains of mice, amyloid plaques would form overnight.

What does it mean to these diseases on earth? Future research will find new ways to deal with these diseases, such as removing dormant bacteria in the blood and inhibiting inflammatory proteins they produce. Flarebio provides you with good-quality recombinant proteins like recombinant COLEC12.