This general mechanism is also key to human chronic #disease development👇A persistent pathogen evolves to create a protein similar in shape to that of its host..and now this #pathogen protein docks into host receptors to control immune/metabolic signaling to its own advantage
2/2 To better understand what I’m talking about please watch this video I recorded on the topic (I try to explain it in simple terms):
3/3 Here’s an example of the phenomenon from our own papers 👉 The Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor (VDR) plays a central role in controlling the innate #immune response (it expresses TLR2, cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides etc)...
4/4 “...BUT a range of persistent #pathogens (EBV, CMV, Borrelia etc) have evolved to create proteins/metabolites that bind + disable VDR activity 👉 This slows the immune response so profoundly that they can survive in tissue/blood w/ much greater ease: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24882…
In fact, the #VDR expresses 1000s of human genes, including #tumor metastasis suppressor protein 1 (MTSS1) 👉 So, for example, #pathogen proteins/metabolites that dysregulate VDR activity also impede the human body’s ability to control cancer progression: academic.oup.com/mend/article/1…
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