For my A&P Peeps, I know someone who specializes in this area, and he gave a brief description the other night of how Ebola works. Pretty fascinating. Bio 201 students wont know a lot of this yet, but Bio 202 students should be able to understand this fairly easily. ******************************************************************************** The full mechanism of bleeding caused by Ebola has not been completely worked out, but some of it has. Two effects are known so far. Ebola does not directly cause its effects, but tends to operate through the hosts immune system. Excess production of immune mediators (cytokines) such as tissue factor (TF), cause DIC which depletes thrombin. At the same time other cytokines such as tissue necrosis factor (TNF) cause endothelial damage that can weaken capillaries. In addition, as the illness progresses, the immune activation causes apoptosis of organ cells leading to generalized organ failure. In the case of the liver, this leads to depletion of all clotting factors which would worsen bleeding (if the host is still alive). Death is usually preceded by Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) which is an out of control activation of the immune system often described as cytokine storm.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 03:05:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015