New research from the University of East Anglia and Quadram Institute reveals how our immune cells use the body’s fat stores to fight infection.
The research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, could help develop new approaches to treating people with bacterial infections.
The research team say their work could one day help treat infections in vulnerable and older people.
The team studied Salmonella — a bacterial infection which causes diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and sepsis.
The UEA team collaborated with the Quadram Institute and colleagues at the Earlham Institute, to track fatty acid movement and consumption in live stem cells.
They went on to analyse the immune response to Salmonella bacterial infection, by analysing liver damage.
They uncovered how blood stem cells respond to infection, by acquiring high energy fatty…