This is called opsonization. The bacteria and immune cells are both negatively charged, so if they were to come together, they would just repell each other. Cationic surfactants are, as their name implies, positively charged. So when these coat the bacterium, the negatively charged immune cells can now see it, and it is more able to eliminate it.
How do cationic surfactants eliminate bacteria?
The effect is not quite opsonization.
The exact mechanism is not known, but there are a few published papers on the subject:
1.Cationic peptides might kill bacteria by activating their autolytic enzymes causing bacteriolysis
http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.or...
2. This paper found that the cationic proteins inhibited oxygen uptake by bacterial cells and damaged the permeability barriers of cells.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...
If the cells became permeable to everything, they would lose the high concentration of nutrients stored in their cytosol and would allow other antimicrobial compounds to enter their cells easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment