Scientists discover never-before-seen particles in the blood of septic patients
By: Faisal Khan
Tags: Science, Innovation, Future, Technology, Health

This timelapse image shows the appearance of an ENDS and how it curls over time — Image Credit: Alex Marki, M.D., Ley Laboratory, La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

MEDICAL DISCOVERY

Scientists discover never-before-seen particles in the blood of septic patients

These mysterious particles break off immune cells & change their shape as they move through the body

As it turns out biology is far more complex than we are led to believe. It was only recently that scientists discovered a mysterious organ — a set of salivary glands hidden inside the human head. You can now add a mysterious particle found in the bloodstream of septic patients, to this list. Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) observed the sausage-shaped structures in mice with sepsis.

Sepsis occurs when the immune system overreacts to infection by flooding the body with dangerous chemicals. In addition to fighting the invading infection, these chemicals also trigger organ damage. In fact, septic “shock” is the most common cause of death, once you are in the hospital.

The team leader of the research came across the mysterious particles while studying neutrophils — a kind of immune cell that moves through the bloodstream and slips into tissues to fight infections. The long, thin shaped particles sticking to the walls of blood vessels in mice had no description of them in the medical literature and therefore were named Elongated Neutrophil-Derived Structures (ENDS).

ENDS were named as such since they are created by immune cells, neutrophils, which are basically the first line of defense against the invading pathogens. Tubes called tethers are attached to neutrophils as they roll on the blood vessel wall. The team then used advanced imaging techniques to figure out how these tubes eventually transform into ENDS.

“We actually found a new particle in the human body that had never been described before. ENDS are not normal — they are not detectable in healthy people or mice, But ENDS are very high in sepsis, and I would not be surprised if they were high in other inflammatory diseases.” ~ Alex Marki, First Author of the Study

To learn more about how ENDS formed and degraded, the team developed new techniques. According to the observations, tethers get longer and thinner as they roll over the blood vessel wall — just 150 nanometers (around 1/500th the width of a human hair).

Eventually, they break off in the middle. Part of the tether stays with the neutrophil, while the broken segment flies away in the bloodstream, off to forming an ENDS. These little structures have so far only been detected in culture cells, live mice, and human patients with sepsis — ENDS are around 100x more detectable in septic patients than in healthy subjects.

Researchers see the potential of using ENDS as a biomarker for different diseases in the long run. However, the technology to make this happen is not available yet. The team hopes to collect more blood samples from patients at various times during the progression of the disease to better understand the function of the newly found particles.

Complete Research was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

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