Electrocuting Microbes
The next time some ignorant person tells you you're crazy for trying to electrocute the microbes in your blood, just refer them to this quote from a science magazine which revels that your bloods white immune cells normally use an
enzymatically triggered means of electrocution to kill bacteria and fungi (yeast):
Science & Vie Magazine, Issue #972, September 1998, pg. 44
The white cells (leucocytes) kill bacteria and pathogenic fungi by electrocuting them. Discovered by the team of Jacques Schrenzel and Karl Heinz Krause (university hospital of Geneva), this means of defense is triggered as soon as the receptors of the white cell detect the presence of a microbe. This signal activates an enzymatic system located in the membrane of the
leukocyte composed of a 'sleeping enzyme' (NADPH oxydase) and co-enzyme (NADPH). The reaction begins by the enzyme 'waking up', receiving enzymes from it's co-enzyme, and transporting them through the membrane. Ejected out of the white cell, this electronic flux is focused towards the bacterium via oxygen molecules; and the bacterium dies. This discovery might open new lines of research on immunity deficiencies in patients who are deprived of this enzymatic system.
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