title: Optimizing the balance between host and environmental survival skills: lessons learned from Listeria monocytogenes.
abstract: Environmental pathogens - organisms that survive in the outside environment but maintain the capacity to cause disease in mammals - navigate the challenges of life in habitats that range from water and soil to the cytosol of host cells. The bacterium Listeria monocytogenes has served for decades as a model organism for studies of host-pathogen interactions and for fundamental paradigms of cell biology. This ubiquitous saprophyte has recently become a model for understanding how an environmental bacterium switches to life within human cells. This review describes how L. monocytogenes balances life in disparate environments with the help of a critical virulence regulator known as PrfA. Understanding L. monocytogenes survival strategies is important for gaining insight into how environmental microbes become pathogens.
authors: Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors: Bobbi
authors: B
authors: Xayarath
authors: Nancy E
authors: NE
authors: Freitag
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D006801:Humans; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity / Q000502:physiology*; D008088:Listeriosis / Q000382:microbiology*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010454:Peptide Termination Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D037521:Virulence Factors
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D010454:Peptide Termination Factors; C545356:PrfA protein, Listeria monocytogenes; D037521:Virulence Factors