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Montana Researchers Study New Disease – Can you say human granulocytic anaplasmosis

Montana scientists helped figured out how an emerging new disease spread through ticks manages to survive one of the human body’s most effective disease-killing assaults.

In a paper published this month in the online edition of the Journal of Immunology, scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, along with researchers at the University of Minnesota, showed that the bacteria actually reproduce after they have been gobbled up by a frontline immune cell called a neutrophil.

"It’s just unusual that this is a pathogen that survives," said Frank DeLeo, who led the Montana research.

Neutrophils, the most common immune system cells, kill pathogens by ingesting them, he said.

Once inside the neutrophil, the pathogen is almost always kept in a special part of the disease-killing cell where the neutrophil bombards it with bleachlike chemicals, destroying it. Then, the neutrophil self-destructs.

Not so with human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA).

By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/05/21/build/state/65-disease.inc

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