title: Striking a balance: inter-kingdom cell-to-cell signaling, friendship or war?
abstract: There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that bacterial signaling molecules are involved in cross-kingdom communication with eukaryotic cells. Bacterial signaling molecules can enter eukaryotic cells and appear to modulate immune responses to bacterial pathogens. Recently, an enticing study demonstrated that mammalian airway epithelial cells have the ability to inactivate these bacterial signaling molecules, suggesting that this activity might have a role in the host innate response against bacterial infections.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390-9048, USA. Vanessa.Sperandio@UTSouthwestern.edu <Vanessa.Sperandio@UTSouthwestern.edu>
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sperandio
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology*; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000502:physiology; D020545:Respiratory Mucosa / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins