New discoverymay lead to better understanding, treatment for common autoinflammatory disease

A new mechanism for a bacterial toxin to inhibit inflammation has now been discovered, report scientists. The research shows that a toxin in Yersinia pestis, the bacterial agent of plague, targets and inhibits the protein pyrin. The inherited autoinflammatory disease Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is caused by mutations that lead to continuous activation of pyrin.