title: Targeting the Mucosal Barrier: How Pathogens Modulate the Cellular Polarity Network.
abstract: The mucosal barrier is composed of polarized epithelial cells with distinct apical and basolateral surfaces separated by tight junctions and serves as both a physical and immunological barrier to incoming pathogens. Specialized polarity proteins are critical for establishment and maintenance of polarity. Many human pathogens have evolved virulence mechanisms that target the polarity network to enhance binding, create replication niches, move through the barrier by transcytosis, or bypass the barrier by disrupting cell-cell junctions. This review summarizes recent advances and compares and contrasts how three important human pathogens that colonize mucosal surfaces,Pseudomonas aeruginosa,Helicobacter pylori, andNeisseria meningitidis, subvert the host cell polarization machinery during infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143.
authors.forename: Travis R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Ruch
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143.|Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143.
authors.forename: Joanne N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Engel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000378:metabolism; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D002450:Cell Communication; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000378:metabolism; D016764:Cell Polarity; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D058750:Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition; D016480:Helicobacter pylori / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000502:physiology*; D009345:Neisseria meningitidis / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D019108:Tight Junctions / Q000378:metabolism; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; C074689:VacA protein, Helicobacter pylori; C080866:cagA protein, Helicobacter pylori