Division of Medical Microbiology, Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
J Clin Invest. 2010 Sep;120(9):3087-90. doi: 10.1172/JCI44402. Epub 2010 Aug 25.
Microbes transmitted to mammals by arthropods contend with many factors that could impede survival. To survive, host fitness with infection must outweigh costs. In this issue of the JCI, Neelakanta et al. demonstrate that ticks infected with Anaplasma phagocytophilum show enhanced fitness against freezing injury owing to induced expression of tick "antifreeze glycoprotein." This allows A. phagocytophilum to successfully propagate and survive to cause disease in nonnatural hosts, such as humans. How an intracellular microbe with a small genome subverts host cell function for survival provides insight into the control of some cellular function programs and underscores how vector biology can have an impact on human health.
节肢动物传播给哺乳动物的微生物会遇到许多可能阻碍其生存的因素。为了生存,宿主与感染的适应性必须超过成本。在本期 JCI 中,Neelakanta 等人表明,感染嗜吞噬细胞无形体的蜱通过诱导表达蜱“抗冻蛋白”显示出对冷冻损伤的适应性增强。这使得嗜吞噬细胞无形体能够成功繁殖并在非自然宿主(如人类)中存活以引起疾病。一个基因组较小的细胞内微生物如何为了生存而颠覆宿主细胞功能,为控制某些细胞功能程序提供了新视角,并强调了媒介生物学如何影响人类健康。