Bacterial Virulence
Chapters
Chlamydia
I. Jutras, A. Subtil, B. Wyplosz and A. Dautry-Varsat
Chlamydia are very successful pathogens of humans and animals.1 As obligate intracellular parasites, they have evolved to establish a unique niche within their host cells. Like other intracellular parasites, they must fulfill several essential functions: survive in the ...
Against Gram-Negative Bacteria: The Lipopolysaccharide Case
Ignacio Moriyón
It is estimated that Bacteria and eucaryotes have coexisted for about 1400 millions years on Earth. The immune system is one of the results of this coexistence, and its cornerstone the ability to distinguish self from non-self, an ability shared by both the innate and adaptive imm...
Antigen Presentation by MHC Class II Molecules
Tone F. Gregers, Tommy W. Nordeng and Oddmund Bakke
Complex multicellular organisms have evolved defense systems to prevent and clear diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms. The innate immune system prevents microorganisms to enter the host intracellular space, while the adaptive immune system responds to such an invasion. The adapt...
Bacteria-Induced Innate Immune Responses at Epithelial Linings
Fredrik Bäckhed and Agneta Richter-Dahlfors
The impact of the innate immune system for survival of flies and other insect has been known for long. During recent years it has become evident that the innate immune system plays a major role for the health of higher organisms as well. Interestingly, the innate defense systems of insec...
Biogenesis of Salmonella-Containing Vacuoles in Eukaryotic Cells
Olivia Steele-Mortimer and Stéphane Méresse
Salmonella enterica are facultative gram-negative intracellular pathogens. Although over two hundred closely related serovars have been identified, three serovars are most commonly associated with human disease. S. enterica serovar Typhi (S. typhi)
Endosome-Phagosome Interactions in Pathogenesis
Carmen Alvarez-Dominguez and Amaya Prada-Delgado
It is widely accepted now that parameters and factors regulating the secretory and endocytic pathways also govern the phagocytic routes. However, not until recently it was accepted that phagosomes may fuse with endosomes, independent on the nature of the phagocytic particle.
Evasion of Phagosome Lysosome Fusion and Establishment of a Replicative Organelle by the Intracellular Pathogen Legionella pneumophila
Craig R. Roy and Jonathan C. Kagan
Most human pathogens that survive and proliferate in normally sterile environments have evolved specialized virulence determinants that facilitate evasion of host defense mechanisms. Microbial strategies to evade host immunity are often geared towards professional phagocytes. This is bec...
Host Cell Signaling Induced by the Pathogenic Neisseria Species
Andreas Popp, Oliver Billker and Thomas F. Meyer
The two pathogenic Neisseria species, N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis, attach to and penetrate the mucosa of the human urogenital tract and nasopharynx, respectively. The molecular events involved in the interaction of these bacteria with the ...
Immune Recognition of the Mycobacterial Cell Wall
Steven A. Porcelli and Gurdyal S. Besra
Mycobacteria are extraordinarily successful pathogens with a remarkable ability to persist within animal tissues even in the presence of an intact immune system. Pathogenic mycobacterial species are predominantly intracellular parasites that replicate within cells of their anim...
Intestinal Epithelial Cells: A Route of Entry for Entero-Invasive Pathogens
Philippe J. Sansonetti and Guy Tran Van Nhieu
B microorganisms that remain extracellular and bind to the apical pole of the intestinal epithelium, whereas (ii) invasive microorganisms have the capacity to penetrate into epithelial cells, thus defining a “pathovar” which itself encompasses a large array of different strategies. Recent recogni...
Life and Death of Brucella Within Cells
Edgardo Moreno and Javier Pizarro-Cerdá
Brucellosis is a contagious bacterial disease of animals and humans. It is caused by organisms of the genus Brucella, composed of at least seven species displaying different affinities for host mammals. Brucella abortus is a parasite of bovines, Brucella...
Lipid Rafts and Host Cell-Pathogen Interactions
Lorena Perrone and Chiara Zurzolo
In this Chapter we will describe the structure of membrane microdomains known as rafts that are enriched in glycosphingolipids and cholesterol. We will analyze the role of rafts in different cellular functions, focusing attention on their involvment in the entry and survival of some pathogen...
Lysosomes
Steve Caplan and Juan S. Bonifacino
The term lysosome, which means "lytic body', was first used in the early 1950s by Christian De Duve to describe a newly characterized membrane-bound degradative organelle.1 It is clear today that the lysosome serves as a major site for degradation of both extracellular an...
Membrane Traffic in the Endocytic Pathway
J.M. Escola and J. Gruenberg
Eukaryotic cells need to be in constant communication with their environment in order to perform most of their functions, including transmission or reception of metabolic and proliferative signals, uptake of nutrients, and adhesion. Segregation of proteins and lipids into discrete organe...
Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Membrane Traffic in Macrophages: Lessons from the Intracellular Pathogen Mycobacterium spp.
Jean Pieters
Material that is engulfed by macrophages through the process of phagocytosis is usually delivered to late endosomal and lysosomal organelles in order to be degraded. The molecular requirements involved in the transfer of material through the phagosomal, endosomal and lysosomal pathways a...
mRNA Decay in Escherichia coli: Enzymes, Mechanisms and Adaptation
Rudolf K. Beran, Annie Prud'hommeGénéreux, Kristian E. Baker, Xin Miao, Robert W. Simons and George A. Mackie
The well recognized metabolic lability of mRNA places serious constraints on the yield of polypeptides which can be translated from a single mRNA. This property can also be exploited as an important mode of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. This chapter presents a model...
Pathogens and Hosts: Who Wins?
Jonathan C. Howard
Who wins? is certainly an evolutionary question, and to some extent also the semantic question, what do we mean by winning? The ultimate victory over microbes is Pyrrhic: we have seen the immunodeficient children in their sterile hoods. A sterile life is not a fulfilled one. So that idea...
Phagosome Biogenesis in Relation to Intracellular Survival Mechanisms of Mycobacteria
Lutz Thilo and Chantal de Chastellier
The genus Mycobacterium includes more than 70 different intracellular bacterial parasites. These range from the obligate intracellular pathogen, M.leprae, the etiologic agent of leprosy, and the facultative intracellular parasites M. tuberculosis, M. bovis
