By Bill Hathaway
July 15, 2021
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(Illustration by Michael S. Helfenbein)
In recent years, scientists have discovered that non-immune system cells are surprisingly well armed to combat infection. Yale researchers have found a particularly powerful weapon in these cells’ arsenal a protein that acts like a detergent to wipe out invading pathogens much like the way that Ajax cleans dirty dishes or sanitizes a kitchen countertop.
This intracellular cleanser, the researchers say, dissolves membranes of invading bacteria that have replicated in the cytosol, the watery interior of cells. Importantly, the detergent-like immune protein does not harm the membranes of organelles belonging to the host cell, they report July 16 in the journal Science.