I believe that this is an amazing discovery that will be very helpful for people in countries were parasites are primarily found. I also think this will be good for people that choose to go to these countries, as a way to prevent themselves from becoming infected.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Using a Parasites Genome Against Itself
Parasitic hookworms are known to infect over 1 billion individuals worldwide, with many of these people living in undeveloped or developing countries. "A parasitic infection is a balance between the parasites trying to suppress the immune system and the host trying to attack the parasite." (MNT) Water and Sanitation in many of these developing countries is poor and causes gastrointestinal issues, eyesight problems, and stunted growth in individuals. Although there are medications to kill hookworms, like many bacteria(some of which are resistant to antibiotics) they are developing a resistance to the medications. "As part of the search for effective new drugs, Sternberg(Professor of Biology at Caltech and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator) and his colleagues investigated the genome of a hookworm species known as Ancylostoma ceylanicum." (MNT 1) The researchers decided to sequence 313 million nucleotides of the A. ceylancium genome and found that it is roughly 10% of the size of the human genome. Seeign as though there were over 30,000 genes the began looking at RNA to find out which genes were turned on when the parasite infected its host. There are 90 ASPR proteins (activation-associated secreted proteins) and the thought is that by targeting these genes, better treatments and medications can be provided to those that are infected.
I believe that this is an amazing discovery that will be very helpful for people in countries were parasites are primarily found. I also think this will be good for people that choose to go to these countries, as a way to prevent themselves from becoming infected.
I believe that this is an amazing discovery that will be very helpful for people in countries were parasites are primarily found. I also think this will be good for people that choose to go to these countries, as a way to prevent themselves from becoming infected.
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