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INFECTIOUS ORIGIN. "The layer of fused cells that forms the membrane between mother and fetus is the key histological feature of the placenta. Cell-cell fusion is not a common feature of mammalian cells, but it is the basis of how retroviruses and other enveloped viruses enter host cells during an infection." https://lnkd.in/e6q2jTP View in LinkedIn

GUNS AND PLOUGHSHARES. "The generation of nitric oxide from arginine is responsible for efficient immune response and cytotoxicity of host cells to kill the invading pathogens. On the other hand, the conversion of arginine to ornithine and urea via the arginase pathway can support the growth of bacterial and parasitic pathogens." https://lnkd.in/ecC5-SQ View in LinkedIn

FUSOGENIC PROTEINS. "Syncytin proteins are typical retroviral-like envelope proteins and have retained the general structure of these glycoproteins. Even though they originate from exogenous retroviruses having infected primate ancestors over several million years ago, these proteins have remarkably conserved their fusogenic potential." https://lnkd.in/eNxap6v View in LinkedIn

"ARGININE is a crucial amino acid that serves to modulate the cellular immune response during infection. Arginine is also a common substrate for both inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and arginase. The competition between iNOS and arginase for arginine can thus contribute to the outcome of several parasitic and bacterial infections." https://lnkd.in/ecC5-SQ View in LinkedIn

IMPLANTATION PROTEIN. "Syncytin-1 is responsible for the fusion of fetal trophoblasts into the placental syncytiotrophoblast layer, which allows for embryo implantation." https://lnkd.in/eZe8TGB View in LinkedIn

AMPLIFIED COMPLEXITY. "The nature of the interaction between the parasite and the host cell's apoptotic machinery is significantly dependent on its biology and the life cycle stage in question. These factors exponentially increase the complexity inherent in mammalian apoptotic regulatory pathways." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2958.2007.05714.x/full View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this excursion into viral then parasitic attempts to enter their hosts, hijack their metabolic machinery, change their body forms, or go into chronic stealth mode to reproduce their kind. In extreme cases, such as toxoplasma Gondi, the host is a mere pawn in the parasite lifestyle. In other cases, the pathology is benign. This fascinating and complicated relationship shows the ingenuity of adaptive evolution. View in LinkedIn

HOST METABOLIC MANIPULATION. "Although the metabolic manipulation of host cells is recognized to play an important role in the pathologic processes of infection, the puzzle is even more complex when the invading pathogen shares many metabolic pathways with the host, a frequent case for protozoan infections." https://lnkd.in/eQuQ_vK View in LinkedIn

METABOLIC PATHWAY ACQUISITION. "The intracellular growth of Trypanosoma cruzi was recently shown to rely predominantly on the energy production, nucleotide metabolism and fatty acid oxidation of the host." https://lnkd.in/egTnZjj View in LinkedIn

ANOTHER HOST GENE HACKER. "Leishmania infantum, a causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis, is able to infect host macrophages and modulate a myriad of signalling pathways that contributes to the disease outcome." https://lnkd.in/egTnZjj View in LinkedIn