The human body has a lot of different methods to react against a pathogen infection. Still, there are some bacteria that invade and replicate inside host cells, avoiding the immune system cells. For these cases, host cells have developed several strategies to stop their growth.
Salmonella is a bacterial pathogen that may cause gastroenteritis and typhoid fever; that is able to invade the macrophages of the immune system. Two researchers, Olivier Cunrath and the professor Dirk Bumman, from the University of Basel, have discovered how Magnesium deprivation to bacteria is vital to stop the pathogen’s growth. Bacteria need this magnesium for their growth, and the host cells can deprive them using a transport protein called NRAMP1. NRAMP1 pumps magnesium vesicles outside of the cell, and by doing that, restrict the growth of the Salmonella.
Magnesium is an element which is crucial for many metabolic processes, and thus, it’s absence, but also the drop in the concentration, causes a stop in the bacterial growth. The bacteria need this magnesium and it looks for it by activating all their magnesium uptakes systems.
In case an animal has NRAMP1 deficiently, the Salmonella will have problems in its growth. Those animals and humans that have a reduced NRAMP1 will be more susceptible to Salmonella and possibly other pathogens; and in more extreme cases, if it’s absent of the NRAMP1, just a small number of pathogens could cause fatal infections.
We believe this research is important because new drugs could be made in order to restrict bacteria from obtaining magnesium, slowing down their growth and giving an advantage to the host cells in order to defeat the pathogens.
By Lourdes Amieva Gómez y Erica Paniagua. Microbiology course. 2nd year of Biotechnology.
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