Background And Aims: Lactulose is a common food ingredient and widely used as a treatment for constipation or hepatic encephalopathy and a substrate for hydrogen breath tests. Lactulose is fermented by the colon microbiota resulting in the production of hydrogen (H2). H2 is a substrate for enteropathogens including Salmonella Typhimurium (S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium is a common cause of diarrhea and invades the gut tissue by injecting a cocktail of virulence factors into epithelial cells, triggering actin rearrangements, membrane ruffling and pathogen entry. One of these factors is SopE, a G-nucleotide exchange factor for the host cellular Rho GTPases Rac1 and Cdc42. How SopE mediates cellular invasion is incompletely understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Light microscopy is of central importance in cell biology. The recent introduction of automated high content screening has expanded this technology towards automation of experiments and performing large scale perturbation assays. Nevertheless, evaluation of microscopy data continues to be a bottleneck in many projects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe virulence of Salmonella enterica critically depends on the functions of two type III secretion systems (T3SS), with the Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI1)-encoded T3SS required for host cell invasion and the SPI2-T3SS enabling Salmonella to proliferate within host cells. A further T3SS is required for the assembly of the flagella. Most serovars of Salmonella also possess a lipopolysaccharide with a complex O-antigen (OAg) structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Type III secretion systems (TTSS) are employed by numerous pathogenic and symbiotic bacteria to inject a cocktail of different "effector proteins" into host cells. These effectors subvert host cell signaling to establish symbiosis or disease.
Methodology/principal Findings: We have studied the injection of SipA and SptP, two effector proteins of the invasion-associated Salmonella type III secretion system (TTSS-1).
The mammalian intestine is colonized by a dense bacterial community, called microbiota. The microbiota shields from intestinal infection (colonization resistance). Recently, we have shown that enteropathogenic Salmonella spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSalmonella Typhimurium causes bacterial enterocolitis. The type III secretion system (TTSS)-1 is a key virulence determinant of S. Typhimurium mediating host cell invasion and acute enterocolitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Opin Microbiol
February 2006
The enteric pathogen Salmonella employs type III secretion systems to transport a cocktail of effector proteins directly into its host cell. These effectors act in concert to control a variety of host cell processes to successfully invade intestinal cells and to establish an intracellular, replication-permissive niche. Recent studies reveal new insights into the molecular mechanisms that underlie effector protein injection, host cell invasion, and manipulation of vesicle trafficking induced by the interplay between multiple effectors and host systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
August 2005
Many pathogenic and symbiotic Gram-negative bacteria employ type III secretion systems to inject "effector" proteins into eukaryotic host cells. These effectors manipulate signaling pathways to initiate symbiosis or disease. By using time-lapse microscopy, we have imaged delivery of the Salmonella type III effector protein SipA/SspA into animal cells in real time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRhoGTPases are central switches in all eukaryotic cells. There are at least two known families of guanine nucleotide exchange factors that can activate RhoGTPases: the Dbl-like eukaryotic G nucleotide exchange factors and the SopE-like toxins of pathogenic bacteria, which are injected into host cells to manipulate signaling. Both families have strikingly different sequences, structures, and catalytic core elements.
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