Step-wise loss of bacterial flagellar torsion confers progressive phagocytic evasion.

ABSTRACT: Phagocytosis of bacteria by innate immune cells is a primary method of bacterial clearance during infection. However, the mechanisms by which the host cell recognizes bacteria and consequentially initiates phagocytosis are largely unclear. Previous studies of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa have indicated that bacterial flagella and flagellar motility play an important role in colonization of the host and, importantly, that loss of flagellar motility enables phagocytic evasion. Here we use molecular, cellular, and genetic methods to provide the first formal evidence that phagocytic cells recognize bacterial motility rather than flagella and initiate phagocytosis in response to this motility. We demonstrate that deletion of genes coding for the flagellar stator complex, which results i

SUBMITTER: Lovewell RR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3174259 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature