Mouse infection by Legionella, a model to analyze autophagy.
Autophagy is a conserved membrane traffic pathway that equips eukaryotic cells to capture cytoplasmic components within a double-membrane vacuole, or autophagosome, for delivery to lysosomes. Although best known as a mechanism to survive starvation, autophagy is now recognized to combat infection by a variety of microbes.(1-3) Not surprisingly, to establish a replication niche in host cells, some intracellular pathogens have acquired mechanisms either to evade or subvert the autophagic pathway. Because they are amenable to genetic manipulation, these microbes can be exploited as experimental tools to investigate the contribution of autophagy to immunity. Here we discuss the mouse macrophage response to L. pneumophila, the facultative intracellular bacterium responsible for an acute form of pneumonia, Legionnaire's disease.
Dubuisson
Jean-François
JF
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-0620, USA.
Swanson
Michele S
MS
D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology; D001343:Autophagy / Q000502:physiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D007249:Inflammation / Q000382:microbiology; D016952:Legionella pneumophila / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D007877:Legionnaires' Disease / Q000382:microbiology*; D008264:Macrophages / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008954:Models, Biological; D014617:Vacuoles / Q000382:microbiology