Wily parasite kills human cells and wears their remains as disguise

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-wily-parasite-human-cells-disguise.html


Entamoeba histolytica (green) attacking human T cells. A new paper by UC Davis researchers lays out a strategy for investigating how this parasite can hide from the human immune system while attacking and liquefying tissue. Credit: Katherine Ralston, UC Davis

The single-celled parasite Entamoeba histolytica infects 50 million people each year, killing nearly 70,000. Usually, this wily, shape-shifting amoeba causes nothing worse than diarrhea. But sometimes it triggers severe, even fatal disease by chewing ulcers in the colon, liquefying parts of the liver and invading the brain and lungs.

"It can kill anything you throw at it, any kind of human cell," said Katherine Ralston, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. E. histolytica can even evade the immune system—and it can kill the white blood cells that are supposed to fight it.

. . .

E. histolytica enters the colon after a person ingests contaminated food or water, generally in developing countries with poor water sanitation. In the United States, it is most commonly seen in people who recently took trips overseas, or who immigrated from other countries.

Its species name, histolytica, means "tissue-dissolving"—because it creates festering pockets of liquefied tissue, called abscesses, in the organs it infects. As it rampages through a person's organs, it doesn't neatly eat the cells that it kills; instead, it leaves the wounded cells to spill out their contents while it hurries on to kill other cells.

And I haven't drawn any comparisons to rfkjr's brain worms, swimming in polluted water, etc.

[hlthe2b]

1. Our animal shelters are usually on the ball with re: to this parasite and dogs brought in from Mexico & elsewhere

in areas where the organism infests contaminated water and some food. That said, there are apparently some issues with private fosters not getting these dogs treated sufficiently quickly so as not to pose risks to others, including humans--from contaminated fecal transmission. That said, the early stages (trophozoites) are readily cleared with drugs like metronidazole. But that is if they are treated early at the diarrheal stage. That said, the complications discussed in the article are relatively rare--in both humans and animals, but serious.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Sounds just like MAGA/GOP.

[drmeow]

3. Sounds like

the current executive branch of our government!