Dangerous Bacteria Actively Seek Out Human Blood, Scientists Discover

Eat your fondness out , A24 : Some real - life bacterial germs are literally thirsty for our blood , newfangled research indicate . scientist have found evidence that certain disease - causing bacteria , including strains of Escherichia coli , are chemically attracted to the serum in our rip as a source of solid food . The horrifying findings seem to explicate why these bacterium tend to make life - menace sepsis .

The research was led by scientists from Washington State University . They were hoping to learn more about bacterium that can regularly invade the blood stream from elsewhere in the consistency , also known asbacteremia . Though most instances of bacteriaemia are temporary and do piffling trouble , they sometimes spark far-flung , potentially fatal inflammation and massive reed organ wrong , a condition know as sepsis .

The team focused on three germ in particular , all belong to the big Enterobacteriaceae family : non - typhoidal Salmonella enterica , Citrobacter koseri , and E. coli . All three bacteria are a common trigger of intestinal haemorrhage and bacteremia , and these infection are a leading cause of death for mass with inflammatory bowel diseases like ulcerative inflammatory bowel disease . For their experimentation , they used strain of these bacteria take from existent patients . To excite intestinal bleeding , they used human profligate serum ( the liquid part of pedigree ) and a “ custom injection - establish microfluidics equipment . ”

It could be worse. At least these Escherichia coli bacteria don’t have fangs.

It could be worse. At least these Escherichia coli bacteria don’t have fangs.Illustration: Kateryna Kon (Shutterstock)

The bacterium was almost instantly draw to even microscopic amounts of blood , commonly taking less than a minute to identify the presence of serum nearby and start moving toward it . Other experiment with Salmonella found grounds that this locomotion was drive at least in part by the bacteria sense a peculiar amino group window pane abundant in serum called L - serine — an power in all likelihood share by many other related bacteria . And they also found that the bacterium were indeed capable of eat off the blood serum .

The finding , releasedas a preprint in the journal Elife this week , demonstrate that some bacteria are finely tune to seek out our blood for alimentation , the generator say . This phenomenon of “ bacterial vampirism , ” as they ’ve decided to coin it , appears to clarify why these bacteria are such a common campaign of bloodstream contagion . The team hope that the lessons learned from this and succeeding research can someday help us find a way to keep these bacteria away from our blood entirely .

“ By learning how these bacteria are able to detect source of blood , in the hereafter we could develop new drug that block this power . These medicines could meliorate the lives and wellness of mass with IBD who are at gamey risk for blood stream infections , ” said lead writer Siena Glenn , a PhD pupil at WSU , in astatementfrom the university .

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