Riverside University of California, United States, publishes study that may lead to the development of new therapies for parasitic infections. These constitute a huge public health problem since these infections are the source of many diseases such asanemia, elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis, a tropical disease that damages the lymphatic system) or dysentery (infectious disease of the colon).
Professor Jessica Lang has uncovered the role of a protein, resistin, in the occurrence of these parasitic infections. Upon contact with an intestinal parasite such as a worm, this immune protein, which is usually found in human serum, would trigger an “inappropriate immune response”. In other words, this hormone would cause excessive inflammation which prevents the immune system from getting rid of the worm.
For researchers, resistin may serve as a novel biomarker for spotting inappropriate immune responses to parasites. “Targeting this inflammatory channel with drugs or antibodies could be a new therapeutic strategy for treating parasitic infections and associated pathologies”, underlines the study, published in the scientific journal Plos Pathogens.
Parasitic infections affect more than two billion people around the world.
