Bacteria can 'outsmart' programmed cell death | Hacker News Reader

Bacteria can 'outsmart' programmed cell death

phys.org

116 pointsdnetesn13 comments

Woah... I wonder if bacteria could in some cases drive certain cancers?

Something that fascinates me is just how small many bacteria are. They appear as specks on the most powerful optical microscopes, if at all. Also, a lot of bacteria simply can't be cultivated outside of the environment they are adapted to, and are as such really hard to study.

This study really reminds me of the symbiogenesis framework for thinking about eukaryotic evolution.

More disease happens from lack of proper gut bacterial environment than most realize, we seem to be finding out.

> Woah... I wonder if bacteria could in some cases drive certain cancers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogenic_bacteria

Very roughly, 1 cancer out of 10 has an infectious cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infectious_causes_of_cancer

The focus in the last decades was mostly about genetic causes of cancer but as it happens for other diseases (see recent discussion on Alzheimer), it is now shifting to other causes. Statnews.com is a good web site to read for lay people like me, who are interested in serious medical related news.

Clarification: This is about bacteria that hide inside cells to avoid the immune system; it's about how they then prevent apoptosis of the host cell, not of themselves (which wouldn't really make sense).

themselves or themcellves? ;)

Thank you for posting this clarification--I was definitely a bit clickbaited by the article, but it,'s interesting nonetheless.

Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-019-0620-5

PDF: https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41564-019-0620-5

A number of tick borne pathogens have similar capability (Bartonella, etc).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746948/

So they release lipopolysaccharide and that somehow keeps cells alive? Can someone eli5 what this suggests?

If I understand what you're suggesting, lipopolysaccharide doesn't make cells immortal. It just does the equivalent of making it not work when you hold down the power button to power cycle and force-shutdown your laptop. It lets your malware be free to run and send emails without danger of losing its environment.

The last part of that is a really a good cross-domain analogy. Kudos to you. :)

So what’s the significance of this research? Underscoring the importance of clearing away senescent cells?

Is it possible for this to cause cancer by causing cells to malfunction in some way?

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