Whygoogleissexist

Whygoogleissexist t1_j1vp7f9 wrote

It’s a work around as they are not vertebrates. However they lack any form of adaptive immunity (T cells and B cells) so they will only provide insight into innate immunity that will only be partially relevant to human disease.

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Whygoogleissexist t1_ixs0hkc wrote

It’s pretty clear from the literature that there is a period -typically- 4-10 days after viral infection where you are more vulnerable to bacterial pneumonia. This is because the immune response to combat a virus thru the production of molecules called interferons suppress some of the immune cells you need to combat bacteria. The window of vulnerability coincides with this anti-viral interferon response. In fact it’s thought that most people who died in the 1918 flu pandemic died of secondary bacterial pneumonia and not the flu per se.

Here are some references:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm1765

https://www.jci.org/articles/view/35412

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21178015/

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