A wide variety of pathogens that harm or kill are known as
“pore-forming” toxins. These
pore-forming toxins destroy cells by perforating the cell membranes, disrupting
their internal chemical balance and causing them to burst. Pore-forming toxins compose about one-quarter of all known
protein toxins and increase the infectivity and severity of bacterial diseases,
and include E. coli, MSRA, anthrax
and snake venom.
Scientists at the University of California – San Diego have
developed what they are terming a “nanosponge” which neutralizes these toxins
and renders them ineffective.
Using a technique developed by one of the research team several years
earlier, the scientists are able to wrap nano-sized spheres of a lactic acid
byproduct with the membrane of a red blood cell. The membrane from a single red blood cell can be used to
wrap, literally, thousands of the nanosponges (which are 3000x smaller than a
red blood cell). The process
appears to be repeatable and scalable, so that not much blood is required to
develop these nanosponges. By
encasing the lactic acid byproduct in the membrane of a red blood cell, the
nanosponge can travel freely in the bloodstream without being viewed as a
foreign body (and thus remaining free from the body’s immuno-response
processes). These tiny nanosponges
then circulate freely through the body and attract 10s to 100s of the
pore-forming toxins each and render them ineffective by trapping them onto the
nanosponge, where they continue to circulate in the bloodstream until they are
metabolized in the liver with no ill effects. Because of their small size, thousands can be circulated in
the blood stream, outnumbering the number of red blood cells and intercepting
the toxins.
In lab tests, 18 mice were injected with a lethal dose of
MSRA. Nine were subsequently
injected with the nanosponges. All
the non-inoculated mice died, whereas only 1 mouse that received the nanosponge
injection died.
If this method proves successful in human trial, science
will be able to treat a wide variety of toxins from MSRA to bee venom.
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