FEVER AND THE CONTROL OF GRAM-NEGATIVE BACTERIA

Although it seems obvious that fever has some important general adapti ve value, it is still not clear by what means this function is manifes ted. One postulate is that febrile conditions result in the sequestrat ion of soluble iron, effectively starving some pathogens of that essen tial nutrient. On the basis of our recent experiments, we propose a ne w mechanism for how fever serves to restrict a wide range of Gram-nega tive bacteria. The elevated temperature prevents the bacteria from syn thesizing their protective LPS, thereby enabling serum complement to p erforate and kill the invading pathogens even prior to the production of host antibodies.