When the immune system detects a harmful or foreign agent it triggers an inflammatory response small proteins called chemokines direct immune cells to the site of the injury or infection, resulting in the invader being inactivated.
More commonly known as a parasite, ticks are able to attach and draw blood off us, or our pets, without triggering an immune reaction, because they produce proteins called evasins, which attach to these chemokines preventing them from warning the immune system that it is under attack. These chemokines can also “turn bad” overstimulating the immune system resulting in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis (MS), cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.
Now, a team from the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute has identified a tick-derived…