[HN Gopher] From second thoughts on the germ theory to a full-bl...
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From second thoughts on the germ theory to a full-blown host theory
Author : Hooke
Score : 22 points
Date : 2023-07-15 15:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
| throwaway72762 wrote:
| This is excellent but also galaxy brain level. Not something
| that's ready for popular digestion, given the levels of basic
| science denial that have popped up post COVID, even among
| supposedly empirical communities like tech.
|
| Eventually if this gains more predictive power then it can be
| merged with germ theory and explained better to the public.
| bawolff wrote:
| I didn't read the whole thing just the abstract, but isn't this
| just the modern standard view?
|
| Germs cause disease. Your immune system stops germs. To get a
| disease the germ must both get into you and either overwhelm or
| find a way past your immune system.
|
| This hardly seems like something beyond public comprehension.
| nextos wrote:
| I also found it a bit too philosophical in the sense that we
| can already explain a lot of the variations in outcomes to
| infection.
|
| For example, HLA/MHC is a family of genes tasked with the
| presentation of antigens (e.g. chunks of proteins) from
| pathogens and your own cells to the immune system. It is a
| very polymorphic region, i.e. full of genetic variants that
| lead to lots of differences in the peptides that are
| presented, to stop spread of infections at population level.
|
| If you have one of the lucky/unlucky alleles, you will have
| high chances of protection/susceptibility. Some alleles, like
| HLA-B57, protect against HIV but it's a tradeoff. Carriers
| are much more susceptible of autoimmunity [1].
|
| From an environmental point of view, if you have dysbiosis,
| e.g. if your gut microbiome ecology is altered, T cell
| receptor distributions will be altered and you are more
| likely to have a bad response to certain infections.
|
| [1] Effects of thymic selection of the T-cell repertoire on
| HLA class I-associated control of HIV infection.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08997
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| In our lab we call it the lock and key hypothesis:
|
| One size doesn't fit all: unraveling the diversity of factors and
| interactions that drive E. coli urovirulence
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28217693/
|
| Bacterial virulence phenotypes of Escherichia coli and host
| susceptibility determine risk for urinary tract infections
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28330863/
|
| It can be useful to look at infections from the perspective of
| microbes:
|
| The acquired immune system: a vantage from beneath
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539148/
|
| TLDR: Microbes were here long before us and will be here after
| us. We are living in their world and the more we try to fight
| them head on, the more they will bother us. Best to adapt and co-
| opt.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Microbes love on every square inch of the world, or close
| enough to it compared to humans.
|
| Humans live like shower fungus at the local gym, we live in the
| cracks and near the water sources, on the scale of earth we
| might as well be microscopic.
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