<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s remarkable is that intelectin-2 operates in two complementary ways. It helps stabilize the mucus layer, and if that barrier is compromised, it can directly neutralize or restrain bacteria that begin to escape,\u201d says Kiessling, who conducted the study with colleagues including Amanda Dugan, a former MIT postdoc and research scientist, and Deepsing Syangtan, PhD \u201924.<\/p>\n
Because intelectin-2 can neutralize or eliminate pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus<\/em> and Klebsiella pneumoniae<\/em>, which are often difficult to treat with antibiotics, it could someday be adapted as an antimicrobial agent, the researchers say. Restoring desirable levels of intelectin-2 could also help people with disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, who may have either too little of it (potentially weakening the mucus barrier) or too much (killing off beneficial gut bacteria).<\/p>\n \u201cHarnessing human lectins as tools to combat antimicrobial resistance opens up a fundamentally new strategy that draws on our own innate immune defenses,\u201d Kiessling says. \u201cTaking advantage of proteins that the body already uses to protect itself against pathogens is compelling and a direction that we are pursuing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #natural #protein #protect #tract #infection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWhat\u2019s remarkable is that intelectin-2 operates in two complementary ways. It helps stabilize the mucus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6899,4132,263,267,6898],"class_list":["post-7642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-infection","tag-natural","tag-protect","tag-protein","tag-tract"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1.png",1199,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-300x150.png",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-768x384.png",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-1024x512.png",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1.png",1199,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1.png",1199,600,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-1024x512.png",1024,512,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIT-Antimicro-Lectin-01-press_1-540x340.png",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}