The Real Cause of Typhoid Fever Accidentally Discovered

Typhoid fever is a disease that dates back to before ancient Greece and still causes as many as 200,000 deaths worldwide each year. "It's the oldest recognizable disease, it devastated Athens and is credited as the main reason why the Spartans beat the Athenians in war," said Jorge Galan, the study's author.

It's been known for some time that the bacterium responsible for the disease is Salmonella typhi, but despite mankind's long history with the microbe, "we've really been blindsided as to why this bug is so pathogenic, even though it's a close cousin of the other salmonella sickness, food poisoning," said Galan.

Galan's research now discloses how S. typhi has managed to retain its stealth for so long. Its deadliness comes from a novel life strategy: it doesn't release its toxin until it's firmly inside a mammalian host cell.

Once inside a mammalian host cell, the typhoid bacterium begins to synthesize the toxin, which is then packaged into courier vessels to be unleashed.

"The toxin is dumped outside of the cell where the bacterium resides and it enters the blood system to hit its target," said Galan.


[link to www.livescience.com]