Trace Metals and Infectious Diseases
Jerome O. Nriagu and Eric P. Skaar
Abstract
Many parts of the world endemic for the most common infectious diseases have the highest prevalence rates of trace metal deficiencies and increasing rates of trace metal pollution. The co-clustering of major infectious diseases with trace metal deficiency or toxicity has created a complex web of interactions with serious but poorly understood health repercussions. Infectious diseases can increase human susceptibility to adverse effects of metal exposure while metal excess or deficiency can increase the incidence or severity of infectious diseases. The combined effects of exposure to metals and ... More
Many parts of the world endemic for the most common infectious diseases have the highest prevalence rates of trace metal deficiencies and increasing rates of trace metal pollution. The co-clustering of major infectious diseases with trace metal deficiency or toxicity has created a complex web of interactions with serious but poorly understood health repercussions. Infectious diseases can increase human susceptibility to adverse effects of metal exposure while metal excess or deficiency can increase the incidence or severity of infectious diseases. The combined effects of exposure to metals and pathogens on the burden of disease and the mechanisms of interactions between trace metals, pathogens, and the environment have largely been overlooked in animal and human studies. Drawing on expertise from several fields, this book focuses on the distribution, trafficking, fate, and effects of trace metals in biological systems, with the goal of enhancing our understanding of the relationships between homeostatic mechanisms of trace metals and the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. It provides a comprehensive review of current knowledge on vertebrate metal-withholding mechanisms and the strategies employed by different microbes to compete for metals to avoid starvation (or poisoning). State-of-the-art analytical techniques available to investigate pathogen-metal interactions are summarized and open questions highlighted to guide future research. Improving knowledge in these areas will be instrumental to the generation of novel therapeutic countermeasures against infectious diseases.
Keywords:
trace metal deficiencies,
trace metal toxicity,
infectious diseases,
trace metal exposure,
homeostatic mechanisms,
pathogenesis of infectious disease,
pathogen-metal interactions
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262029193 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: May 2016 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262029193.001.0001 |
