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Identity

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Mineral quashes deadly bacterial poisons

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have found a promising new mineral to help those suffering from hemorrhage-inducing infections caused by some food- and waterborne germs. Though the data is still being researched, people are excited for the outcome. The mineral, manganese might soon offer a low-cost treatment that physicians could administer “to every patient that comes into the clinic with a bloody stool,” stated Bryan [whom did not participate in the research.] “The mineral helps detoxify Shiga toxin, which is produced by a host of bacteria, including the type of E. coli that killed scores and sickened more than 3,700 people in Europe last year.” This discovery is tremendous because although antibiotics aids in wiping out top germs causing the infection, taking these drugs are discouraged. Moreover, killing the infectious bugs only hastens the process in which the toxin Shiga is released. Furthermore, leading to the increase of the patient’s risk of kidney failure, stroke and death. The process is as follows; foreign materials entering a cell will get evaluated by an internal compartment called an endosome anything undesirable by the endosome will be transferred to an other compartment, a lysosome. Normally there they would be broken down and raw materials left will be discarded or recycled. Shiga toxin is an exception because it never reaches the lysosome. Through the normal transferring process something goes awry. The toxin “hijacks the protein trafficking systems and forces a detour elsewhere in the cell. There, killing the cell’s life-sustaining machinery.” Manganese helps protect the GPP130 [specific protein being studied] from attack. Allowing cells to directly send the toxin to the lysosomes. Pretreatment to cells in test tubes and mice has prevented death furthermore proving this. Yet, it’s still unclear how clinically helpful it is. The toxin destroys the body’s smallest blood vessels. “Vascular injury, which is the most dramatic consequence of infection with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, is likely to be well under way by the time infected patients seek medical attention for diarrhea,” notes epidemiologist Dirk Werber of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. All in all, the researchers haven’t lost hope in this serendipitous discovery. They are coming closer to an amount of manganese needed to protect animals, and hope to soon begin testing using Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli.

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