Predicting Infection

Whether good or bad, our experiences shape our reactions to situations. It’s true at a cellular level too. A bladder infection today could make you more or less susceptible to recurrent bladder infections in the future. Researchers investigate what tips the balance using mice. Mouse bladders were infected with bacteria either for the first time or after having a previous bladder infection. Infection causes immune cells to gather around infected cells lining the bladder’s interior, as captured here by researchers using scanning electron microscopy. Inflammation, kicked off by a molecule called TNFalpha, also occurs. In mice previously exposed to bladder infection, inflammation occurred more quickly. If the previous infection was chronic, inflammation was prolonged and harmful, worsening the current infection. But if the previous infection resolved itself, inflammation helped clear the current infection. Those first experiences of infection therefore rewire TNFalpha signalling to affect future infections.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Lu Yu and Valerie P O'Brien, and colleagues
• Department of Molecular Microbiology and Center for Women’s Infectious Disease Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, August 2019