title: Cutting Edge: Brucella abortus exploits a cellular prion protein on intestinal M cells as an invasive receptor.
abstract: Brucella abortus is a Gram-negative bacterium causing brucellosis. Although B. abortus is known to infect via the oral route, the entry site in the gastrointestinal tract has been unclear. We found that B. abortus was selectively internalized by microfold cells (M cells), a subset of epithelial cells specialized for mucosal Ag uptake. During this process, colocalization of cellular prion protein (PrP(C)) and B. abortus was evident on the apical surface as well as in subapical vacuolar structures in M cells. Internalization of B. abortus by M cells of PrP(C)-deficient (Prnp(-/-)) mice was greatly reduced compared with that in wild-type mice. Furthermore, an oral infection study revealed that translocation of B. abortus into the Peyer's patch was significantly lower in Prnp(-/-) than in wild-type mice. These observations suggest that orally infected B. abortus invades the host through M cells by using PrP(C) on the apical surface of M cells as an uptake receptor.
authors: Laboratory for Epithelial Immunobiology, Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, RIKEN, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan;
authors: Gaku
authors: G
authors: Nakato
authors: Koji
authors: K
authors: Hase
authors: Michio
authors: M
authors: Suzuki
authors: Masanobu
authors: M
authors: Kimura
authors: Manabu
authors: M
authors: Ato
authors: Misaho
authors: M
authors: Hanazato
authors: Minoru
authors: M
authors: Tobiume
authors: Motohiro
authors: M
authors: Horiuchi
authors: Ryuichiro
authors: R
authors: Atarashi
authors: Noriyuki
authors: N
authors: Nishida
authors: Masahisa
authors: M
authors: Watarai
authors: Koichi
authors: K
authors: Imaoka
authors: Hiroshi
authors: H
authors: Ohno
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002003:Brucella abortus / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D002006:Brucellosis / Q000378:metabolism*; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D010581:Peyer's Patches / Q000378:metabolism; D018621:PrPC Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D018621:PrPC Proteins