Brucellosis is a bacterial infection that mostly affects cattle, goats, and sheep. It can induce pregnancy loss and has cost livestock farmers throughout the world billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Additionally, the illness can spread from animals to people, primarily through the ingestion of unpasteurized dairy products or breathing in the spores from sick animals’ tissues.
However, the bacteria can also reach the brain and create neurobrucellosis, which can result in long-term neurological difficulties, headaches, nausea, disorientation, swelling of the brain, and even death. In humans, the disease can also cause arthritis, inflammation of the heart, and flu-like symptoms.
Now, a new study at the University of Missouri has highlighted the protective power of both innate lymphoid cells and specific signaling proteins, known as interferons, in reducing the harmful neurological effects of Brucella.
The National Institutes of Health financed the study, which employed a mouse model and may help with future advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition.
The work being done in MU’s Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research improves the health of both animals and humans, which is gratifying. When I was recently visiting my grandparents in Arizona, I heard from a friend of my grandpa, who said his dad, who was a farmer, had died in the 1950s from brucellosis, and was thankful I was researching this topic. Stories like that motivate me, and I want to help.
Charles Moley
“While Missouri has been considered ‘Brucellosis free’ since 2004 and the bacteria has almost been completely eradicated in both humans and domestic animals nationwide, there are still areas where it persists like within bison in Yellowstone National Park,” said Charles Moley, a veterinarian and current doctoral student in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) who led the study in the lab of Jerod Skyberg, an associate professor in the CVM. “Worldwide, it is one of the most common bacterial infections that jumps from animals to humans, and there are estimates it impacts more than 10 million people each year, mainly in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions.”
Moley is a veterinary scientist in the Comparative Medicine Program, and his research can potentially inform the work of other researchers by better understanding how the disease impacts the brain.
The study could result in more targeted therapeutic interventions for people worldwide who suffer from neurobrucellosis or more targeted diagnostic approaches for diagnosing the illness before neurological symptoms appear or worsen. This is because we now understand the crucial protective role played by innate lymphoid cells and interferons.
“The work being done in MU’s Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research improves the health of both animals and humans, which is gratifying,” Moley said. “When I was recently visiting my grandparents in Arizona, I heard from a friend of my grandpa, who said his dad, who was a farmer, had died in the 1950s from brucellosis, and was thankful I was researching this topic. Stories like that motivate me, and I want to help.”
