University of Sheffield scholars carried out a study that gives further insights regarding how meningitis spreads. The authors expect that the new findings from the condition could be utilized to improve solutions against meningitis that are available today.
Through the extensive observation of meningitis, researchers found that a fungus called Cryptococcus neoformans induces the impact of the infection to influence the state of the human body.
The fungus helps meningitis to spread in a patient by disrupting the natural process of blood vessels, including blocking and even bursting these pathways.
Global cases of meningitis rise up to 2.5 million per year, EurekAlert reports.
The latest meningitis research, according to the authors, could also open studies relating to other conditions that involve blood vessels, including many neurological and cardiovascular diseases.
Meningitis and Cryptococcus neoformans
Cryptococcus neoformans microbes were identified to lodge abnormally in blood vessels whenever meningitis occurs. This blockage prevents the standard blood flow from being passed on to specific parts of the body.
These microbes could even burst the affected area due to the high blood pressure. They can materialize as well in small blood vessels, allowing an easier and more critical burst that produces other infectious substances to internal organs such as the brain.
Meningitis is commonly a product of a separate infection that manifests in the spinal cord and the brain. The inflammation could be severe if left untreated and likely result in a life-threatening situation due to how fast it spreads.
Sheffield's Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease expert Simon Johnston, who also led the paper, explained that the brain organ contains a complex structure that has the capacity to ward-off microbes effectively.
However, their team has singled out an approach that is utilized very easily by microbes in escaping the intense blood flow on the vessels and reaching the brain, Johnston added.
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Microbes Blocking and Bursting Blood Vessels
Previous meningitis studies presented how these particular microbes can disrupt the protection of the brain and even utilize immune cells to infiltrate the brain.
The latest analysis, on the other hand, demonstrates how the microbes evade the immune cells and how the same, effective microbes damage pathways and travel straight to the brain.
The study was made possible through the collaboration of the University of Queensland and Singapore's Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A-Star).
The experiments on how the fungi work with meningitis were conducted through zebrafish larvae. From the subjects, the team found the exact activities that meningitis carries out across blood vessels.
Johnston said that the research is inspired by the puzzling damages in the blood vessels that were recorded in many meningitis patients.
The meningitis-inducing infections can be treated with the available solutions developed today. However, these antimicrobials can be rendered ineffective when a lot of damage by meningitis was already inflicted on an individual. Current challenges include the increasing global cases of antimicrobial-resistant infections.
The study was published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, titled "Blood vessel occlusion by Cryptococcus neoformans is a mechanism for haemorrhagic dissemination of infection."
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