“Sepsis is generally thought of as one singular disease, especially when viewing it clinically as it enters late stages,” said senior study author Jamey Marth, PhD. “Our comparative approach to experimentally monitor the onset and progression of sepsis at the molecular level supports the view that there are different molecular pathways in the pathogenesis of sepsis depending on host responses to different microbes.”
For the study, the researchers created a more precise method that tracked pathogens over time, which created a reproducible protocol to follow how sepsis started and progressed. The researchers then mapped host responses to five different human pathogens representing common strains and isolates from different patients, including Salmonella, Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
When examining the pathogens and host responses, the research team found some host responses were not seen in infections caused by other bacterial pathogens they tested, meaning the path of sepsis varies by bacterial infection.
“We are continuing to map and compare host responses to pathogens in sepsis, using state-of-the-art technical approaches, and hope to ultimately stratify the disease,” Dr. Marth said. “It’s possible that sepsis is similar to cancer, in that we now know that cancer is a not a single disease but represents hundreds of diseases at the molecular level.”
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