Guest guest Posted February 1, 2001 Report Share Posted February 1, 2001 One of the talks at the Seattle meeting that I found particularly interesting was by Dr. Maher, who is in Dr. Klimas's immunology group in Miami. found that the natural killer cells in PWCs are low in perforin. Perforin is the protein that natural killer cells and cytotoxic (CD-8) T cells use to " perforate " the membranes of infected cells in order to drive them into apoptosis (controlled cell death). This is how viral and intracellular infections are normally countered. I think this might explain why PWCs have low NK cell function and poor Th1 immune response, and why they are plagued with viral and intracellular bacterial infections. is going to follow up on this study and try to figure out why the perforin is low. It is interesting to note that the perforin molecule has a high-cysteine region. I have urged to investigate whether the low perforin could be caused by low cysteine in the blood serum, which is where the NK and T cells get their nutrients. If this turns out to be the case, then there would appear to be a link between perforin depletion and glutathione depletion, since the limiting substrate for synthesis of glutathione is usually cysteine also. It would also seem, then, that nondenatured whey protein might be the way to build up the perforin and restore the NK and killer T cell activities. Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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