Shigella infection and host cell death: a double-edged sword for the host and pathogen survival

Cell death and infection: A double-edged sword for host and pathogen survival

Host cell death is an intrinsic immune defense mechanism in response to microbial infection. However, bacterial pathogens use many strategies to manipulate the host cell death and survival pathways to enhance their replication and survival. This manipulation is quite intricate, with pathogens often suppressing cell death to allow replication and then promoting it for dissemination. Frequently, ...

Neutrophils, host defense, and inflammation: a double-edged sword.

Neutrophils play important roles in host defense against all classes of infectious agents but, paradoxically, they are also involved in the pathology of various inflammatory conditions. Their microbicidal armory consists of oxidative and nonoxidative processes that are activated simultaneously upon phagocytosis. Although destruction of infectious agents occurs intracellularly, release of cytoto...

Integration of the viral genome into the host cell genome: a double-edged sword.

A Double-Edged Sword?

The enormous benefits of inhibition of ACE demonstrate that manipulation of the metabolism of peptide hormones is a valuable therapeutic strategy for cardiovascular disease. Recent attempts to expand these benefits have combined ACE inhibition with inhibition of other peptidases such as neutral endopeptidase (NEP) in a single molecule, a strategy known as vasopeptidase inhibition. NEP metaboliz...

A Double-Edged Sword

Ischemic heart disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The survival after acute ischemic events has improved substantially in recent years, but new syndromes have emerged. Cardiac remodeling following a large myocardial infarction, with dilatation of the left ventricle, has deleterious hemodynamic consequences and is a major cause of chronic heart failure.1 The increased inc...