What is it about?

There has been a long-standing but ill-defined association between infection with parasitic Schistosoma haematobium worms and increased susceptibility to bacterial urinary tract infections (UTI). This paper demonstrates that S. haematobium-induced IL-4 abrogates the activation of natural killer T cells that would otherwise effectively clear bacterial UTI.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This paper is important because it is the first to show that Schistosoma haematobium infection really does increase susceptibility to bacterial urinary tract infection. Moreover, this co-infection is thought to potentially increase risk of bladder cancer, and likely worsens the urinary symptoms of S. haematobium infection, including hematuria (bloody urine) and pelvic pain.

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Helminth-Induced Interleukin-4 Abrogates Invariant Natural Killer T Cell Activation-Associated Clearance of Bacterial Infection, Infection and Immunity, March 2014, ASM Journals,
DOI: 10.1128/iai.01578-13.
You can read the full text:

Read

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page