preview

There Are Some Micro-Organisms With The Capability To Cause

Decent Essays

There are some micro-organisms with the capability to cause disease defined as pathogens (1). Now, imagine a weighing-scale representing the pathogen’s interactions with its environment. The left characterizes the virulence factors which are properties of a micro-organism to increase its chances of establishing itself within a host (2), the right signifies the host equipped with a sophisticated immune system. Suddenly, the scale tips to the left, representing a biological war which favours an outcome where the ability to cause disease has won. That is pathogenicity.
The purpose of pathogenicity varies fairly much; in the case of extremely destructive pathogens such as Ebola or Marburg upon infecting humans, host morbidity is virtually …show more content…

However, the pathogen can avoid this and in other instances it, must survive further immune responses that vary in intensity.
For example, the complement system, a dominant innate response component is highly important. It marks pathogens for phagocytosis, kills them via pore formation directly and stimulates B-cells (6). It is essentially the bridge transitioning the immune response from innate to adaptive. Pseudomonas aeruginosa express proteases (e.g. Pseudomonas elastase (PaE)) which degrade C1q and C3 (6) and thus avoiding complement activation on the bacterial surface. It increases the virulence of the bacteria. This is by escaping confrontation with further components of the complement system (5). Consequently, the system cannot heighten the abilities of antibodies or promote inflammation.
Another complement evasion strategy is the use of microbial complement inhibitors, a direct intervention. Herpes viruses have transmembrane glycoproteins gC1 and gC2 which bind C3b (7) , accelerating the decay of C3 convertase of the alternative pathway (7). Thus, no complement cascade will occur or opsonisation.
The host-pathogen relationship can characterise host damage in response to a pathogen as a function of time (8).The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is highly advantageous in its pathogenicity as it not only

Get Access