Critical Care Researchers Find Clues To Combat Sepsis

12/05/06

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research identifying a key enzyme’s role in sepsis may help determine the course of critically ill patients’ response to the life-threatening infection and aid in development of drugs to reduce its damage.

Researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center found that the enzyme, caspase-1, contributes to the process by which patients become infected with sepsis, a blood infection that can lead to organ failure, shock and death. More than 500,000 people develop sepsis annually and 175,000 of them die in the United States.

The research was published in the American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine.

“Sepsis can be considered as collateral damage from our own defense system,” says Dr. Mark Wewers, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist at Ohio State University Medical Center and principal investigator of the study. “We were able to show that caspase-1 contributes to this damage since its deletion has proven to protect organs from developing sepsis.”

The data from the study provided strong support for the role of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, as a critical component of the sepsis connection to caspase-1. Under normal circumstances, the enzyme kills damaged cells to protect the body. But this study suggests that in sepsis, caspase-1 triggers death in cells the body needs to fight the infection. The prevention of apoptosis is considered a key to improving survival and decreasing mortality.

This story resulted from a news release distributed by OSUMC media relations, available on the web at: http://medicalcenter.osu.edu/mediaroom/press/article.cfm?ID=2960