As if superbugs aren’t scary enough, a study published online today in Nature Medicine describes how the most sinister of them all—MRSA—has evolved special ammunition to disable human immune cells.
The bug has mutated to synthesize small peptides that destroy oxygen-carrying red blood cells, cause inflammation, and kill the body’s neutrophils—white blood cells that slay and scarf down infection-causing microorganisms.
The worst part of the story is that these peptide-slinging überbugs are more prevalent in the community setting than in hospitals; they are crawling through homes, schools, gyms, and the workplace. Community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA)—MRSA in people who have not been hospitalized or had a medical procedure in the past year—has recently become a serious public health problem. The bug causes skin and soft tissue infections such as pimples and boils, and sometimes fatal sepsis in otherwise healthy people.
The study, which was conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), essentially shows how community MRSA can actually be more dangerous than the hospital variety. Not good news.
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