Work from the laboratory of John MacMicking in the Yale Systems Biology Institute was recently named one of 10 innovative discoveries for 2021, according to the Smithsonian magazine.
MacMicking’s team reported in Science that a human protein called apolipoprotein L3 (APOL3) acts like a detergent to kill bacterial pathogens inside human cells. This finding was unexpected since detergent activity could also harm host cell membranes.
Cholesterol – a major constituent of human but not bacterial membranes – was shown to interfere with APOL3 binding, thereby protecting the host and enabling APOL3 to discriminate friend from foe.