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Over the past few years, public awareness of the microbial communities in our gut has grown significantly – partially thanks to Giulia Enders' book "Gut: The Inside Story Of Our Body's Most Under-Rated Organ". Scientific studies on antibiotics and the microbiota have also attracted attention: The use of these products is hypothesised to disrupt the sensitive inhabitants of our intestine and may cause serious damage. So how can we protect our gut flora against this?

Chronic lung infections caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa require complex and, in most cases, long-term treatment with antibiotics. It is generally not possible to completely heal the infection or even significantly reduce the bacterial load—new medication is badly needed. Scientists at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) are now improving an anti-infective active ingredient with a new mode of action. The starting point is a substance that can block the pathogenicity of the bacterium and weaken its protective biofilm. The Helmholtz Validation Fund, the DZIF and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) are contributing a joint investment of 2.7 million euros to improve this class of substance, aiming to achieve a preclinical candidate.

To be able to develop new drugs against infectious diseases researchers need to understand their molecular basis. How does the proliferation of a pathogen proceed, what interactions take place between it and the host cell and how are these processes regulated? For this purpose, protein-RNA complexes are examined. They play an important role at different times in the lifecycle of the pathogen or the host cell and are thus involved in infection processes. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), the Leibniz Universität Hannover, the EMBL Heidelberg and the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research at Utrecht University have now developed an integrated structure analysis platform that is able to very simply and effectively calculate the structure of large protein-RNA complexes on the basis of diverse experimental data. The so-called “M3 Framework” is available free of charge for researchers from academic institutes. The researchers published their results in the scientific journal Nature Methods.

Stem cells in the bone marrow provide a life-long supply of blood and immune cells. If they display defects – either caused by hereditary diseases or blood cancer – the transplantation of bone marrow cells of a suitable donor is often the only therapeutic option. To avoid rejection of the transplanted stem cells, the patients immune response needs to be dampened. The consequence: Bacteria and viruses have an easy time. Especially infections with the highly prevalent Cytomegalovirus are a leading cause of clinical complications – ranging from graft rejection to life-threatening disease. Scientists of TWINCORE and the German Cancer Research Center have now switched prespective: They investigated the influence of virus infections of bone marrow donors on the success of a transplantation. Their – striking – results were recently published in „Cell Reports“.

Scientists studying infections used to focus mainly on the direct interaction of the immune system with pathogens, but have since moved on to look more closely at the interactions that go on between microbiota, immune system and pathogen. Using mouse models, researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) recently elucidated a relationship between gut microbiomes of various compositions and the susceptibility to Salmonella infections. In their study, the scientists from Braunschweig identified several bacterial families that have a protective effect against Salmonella. The researchers also elucidated the immune mechanism in the mucosa of the gut that is regulated by the protective bacterial families. Published in Cell Host & Microbe, the results of the study of the HZI scientists are an important step towards a better understanding of the interactions of the triad of microbiota, immune system and pathogen.