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News & Views: Leprosy Might Hack Your Cells
Posted on May 14, 2013 by Jane Newbold | Categories: Infectious Disease, News | | Add comment |

“Reprogrammed cells (green) fuse with and become skeletal muscles (red), spreading infection as they go. Cell nuclei are shown in blue.” Source: Masaki et al./Cell

Recent research into the mechanisms of leprosy suggests that bacterium Mycobacterium leprae reprograms human Schwann cells to act as stem cell-like vectors for further infection. WIRED Science has the story.