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Role of staph infections in changing immune system examined

Role of staph infections in changing immune system examined Gene profiles of children with severe staphylococcus aureus infections have been mapped by Infectious disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center to provide a new insight into the role played by staph infections in changing immune system.

The study was aimed to find how the human immune system gets programmed for responding to this pathogen besides opening new doors for enhancing results of therapeutic interventions.

From News-Medical.net:

Researchers used blood samples collected between 2001 and 2005 from 77 children - 53 hospitalized at Children’s Medical Center Dallas with invasive S aureus infections and 24 controls. The control samples were collected from healthy children attending either well-child clinic or undergoing elective surgical procedures. Children with underlying chronic diseases, immunodeficiency, multiple infections, and those who received steroids or other immunomodulatory therapies were excluded from the study.

The children ranged in age from a few months to 15 years and included 43 boys and 34 girls. Those with S aureus infections - both methicillin-resistant (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible (MSSA) - were matched with healthy controls for age, sex and race. The researchers also characterized the extent as well as the type of infection in each patient to make sure that the strain of bacteria didn’t influence the results.

Dr. Ardura stressed that more research is needed because the results represent a one-time snapshot of what’s going on in the cell during an invasive staphylococcal infection.

It was remarked by Dr. Monica Ardura, instructor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study available online in PLoS One, the Public Library of Science’s online journal, that the foremost description of a response pattern had already been provided that seems to be very consistent, very reproducible and very intense.