Neisserias game plan
The bacterium changes its genome, mimics immune molecules
in january 2009, there was an outbreak of meningococcal meningitis in Meghalaya and Tripura. Two thousand people were infected, 250 died. Over the past years, this disease has afflicted the world several times and with varying intensities. Helena Lo and other researchers, at the department of microbiology from the Imperial College in London, UK, got together to investigate what makes the meningitis bacterium life-threatening.
The meningitis is caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis. It has evolved such that it only requires the body of one host to complete its life cycle: the human body. Such adaptabi lity also means it has acquired sufficient skills to evade the immune system. No vaccine has yet been able to counter this disease.
This Neisseria species has 1,900 different copies of a specific dna sequence within its genome. The sequence helps in the uptake of genetic material from other bacteria that cause gonorrhoea and sepsis. This changes the bacterium