How the Immune System Identifies Invading Bacteria
Never-before-seen images of mouse immune system proteins and bacterial bits reveal an inspection strategy that identifies pathogens.
Newswise — The body’s homeland security unit is more thorough than any airport checkpoint. For the first time, scientists have witnessed a mouse immune system protein frisking a snippet of an invading bacterium. The inspection is far more extensive than researchers imagined: the immune system protein, similar to those in humans, scans the bacterial protein in six different ways, ensuring correct identification.
“This was very surprising,” says Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator Eva Nogales, a structural biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “The immune system protein uses many protein parts, including some of previously unknown function.”
This post is of great value to all of us as we can see how the Immune System identifies invading bacteria.
Never-before-seen images of mouse immune system proteins and bacterial bits reveal an inspection strategy that identifies pathogens.
Newswise — The body’s homeland security unit is more thorough than any airport checkpoint. For the first time, scientists have witnessed a mouse immune system protein frisking a snippet of an invading bacterium. The inspection is far more extensive than researchers imagined: the immune system protein, similar to those in humans, scans the bacterial protein in six different ways, ensuring correct identification.
“This was very surprising,” says Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator Eva Nogales, a structural biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “The immune system protein uses many protein parts, including some of previously unknown function.”
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