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Cells inside the human body contain a flexible polymer network called the cytoskeleton which consists of actin filaments - and other components - and undergoes constant assembly and disassembly. This turnover of actin filaments allows cells to change shape and move. Such movements are important for example during embryonic development, wound healing but also for a properly operating immune system. To be able to move through tissue, cells need to expend energy and apply force. For example, immune cells advance into all regions of our body to detect and fight pathogens. In turn, though, some pathogens can abuse the cytoskeleton to adhere to or penetrate into cells.

Many bacteria move by rotating long, thin filaments called flagella. Flagella are made of several tens of thousands building blocks outside the bacterial cell and grow up to ten times longer than the bacterial cell body. They allow bacteria to swim towards a nutrient source or to approach cells of the human mucosa in order to infect them. This means that flagella are also tools in infection processes and might be suitable as potential targets for new agents against pathogenic bacteria. The details of how flagella are assembled and how this process might be inhibited remained elusive. Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig now elucidated this mechanism using real-time observations of growing flagella. The researchers published their results in the freely accessible journal, eLife.

There is a continuing need for effective vaccinations against viruses which specifically infect the liver. According to the World Health Organization WHO, approximately 400 million people around the world are infected by hepatitis B or hepatitis C viruses and approximately 1.4 million people succumb to them each year. Moreover, chronic hepatitis B or C infections are amongst the most common causes of liver cancer and therefore are some of the most common reasons for a liver transplantation. Recently, a research team directed by Prof Dunja Bruder, who holds appointments at both the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, successfully targeted a vaccine specifically to recognition molecules of certain immune cells which allowed them to elicit an effective immune defence in the liver. The researchers published their results in Scientific Reports.

Patients afflicted by myeloproliferative neoplasia – a group of chronic malignant bone marrow diseases – bear a mutation in their haematopoietic stem cells. The mutation leads to the bone marrow producing too many blood cells, which thickens the blood. This can lead to blood clots or clogged blood vessels, which may trigger, e.g., a stroke. Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and of the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg recently discovered that certain cells of the immune system also bear this mutation in those patients that possess a particularly large number of altered stem cells. The impact of this scenario on the defence against pathogens was investigated in mice by the scientists. They published their results in Leukemia.

Die Grippewelle ist da. Deutschland schnieft und hustet. Zehntausende leiden auch 2017 wieder unter der Grippe. Die Bundesländer Baden-Württemberg, Thüringen und Sachsen waren zuletzt besonders von den Infekten betroffen. Allein in der vergangenen Meldewoche sind rund 14.000 bestätigte Fälle von Influenza und 32 größere Ausbrüche an das Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI) übermittelt worden. Prof. Gérard Krause, Leiter der Abteilung Epidemiologie, und Prof. Carlos A. Guzmán, Leiter der Abteilung Vakzinologie, vom Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (HZI) in Braunschweig äußern sich zur aktuellen Lage und zu den Hintergründen.

In the last few years, previously unknown viruses or viruses, which were considered eliminated, have been unveiled: last year, the World Health Organization WHO declared “A Public Health Emergency of International Concern” associated with the outbreak of Zika virus. In 2014 and 2015, according to a report by the Robert Koch Institute, 11,000 people in West Africa died of Ebola. In 2012 the MERS virus was detected for the first time – after the SARS epidemic in 2003, a further coronavirus, which triggers a respiratory syndrome.