manipal researchers at manipal universitys school of life sciences discovered biomolecules that impede surveillance against infection and promotes complications in diabetes they identified the chemicals in the body responsible for preventing the healing of foot infections in diabetic patients and vascular diseases the researchers examined specialized sentinel cells called neutrophils in the blood that fight infections the investigators describe how chemicals and proteins present inappropriately in diabetic individuals disable short lived cells such as neutrophils make them ineffective to fight infections and may promote diabetes associated complications the new findings were published recently in nature publishing groups npg journal scientific reports entitled elevated homocysteine levels in type 2 diabetes induce constitutive neutrophil extracellular trapsthis important finding was possible at manipal university because of the environment created to execute multidisciplinary research bringing together clinical practitioners and basic scientist said vice chancellor dr vinod bhat dr hs ballal prochancellor for manipal university said we have been striving for societal benefit through our network or hospitals education institutions with special emphasis on research and developmental activities the work being carried out at school of life sciences is critical to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and may lead to better clinical practices in future of the various ways in which neutrophils fight infection the process called netosis is key to trap the bacteria and eliminate them in the body explains manjunath b joshi assistant professor and lead author of the manuscript of school of life sciences manipal university neutrophils constitute a major part of blood cells and are actively involved in fighting against pathogens during infection neutrophils release their dna along with few proteins to trap bacteria and fungi and kill them this happens similar to fishermen who throw the net to trap the fish these structures are known as neutrophil extracellular traps nets and the process netosis in healthy individuals these processes are very efficient to guard the body from harmful bacteria while in diabetic individuals the very process is ineffective due to excessive inflammatory proteins and biomolecules such as glucose and homocysteine nets in diabetes appear to be the culprit in two ways ineffective nets fail to fight pathogens such as those associated with foot infections and accumulation of excess nets might lead to delayed wound healing and promote cardiovascular diseases infections of foot ulcers in diabetic individuals are difficult to manage due to drug resistant bacteria and inability of the host to fight infection approximately 15 of all diabetic foot ulcers undergo amputation and is a significant public health problem manipal university team first demonstrated in 2013 that neutrophils from diabetic individuals are constitutively weak to respond to cues to produce extracellular traps nets due to high levels of glucose which could be partially recovered by inhibiting the glucose transport inside the neutrophils