title: Bacterial interactions with the host epithelium.
abstract: The gastrointestinal epithelium deploys multiple innate defense mechanisms to fight microbial intruders, including epithelial integrity, rapid epithelial cell turnover, quick expulsion of infected cells, autophagy, and innate immune responses. Nevertheless, many bacterial pathogens are equipped with highly evolved infectious stratagems that circumvent these defense systems and use the epithelium as a replicative foothold. During replication on and within the gastrointestinal epithelium, gastrointestinal bacterial pathogens secrete various components, toxins, and effectors that can subvert, usurp, and exploit host cellular functions to benefit bacterial survival. In addition, bacterial pathogens use a variety of mechanisms that balance breaching the epithelial barrier with maintaining the epithelium in order to promote bacterial colonization. These complex strategies represent a new paradigm of bacterial pathogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Disease Control, International Research Center for Infectious Diseases, University of Tokyo 4-6-1, Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan.
authors.forename: Minsoo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ashida
authors.forename: Michinaga
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshikawa
authors.forename: Hitomi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mimuro
authors.forename: Chihiro
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sasakawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000472:pathogenicity; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D004848:Epithelium / Q000382:microbiology*; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D006801:Humans