Neisseriae internalization by epithelial cells is enhanced by TLR2 stimulation.

ABSTRACT: Neisseria meningitidis (NM) is an opportunistic gram-negative human pathogen that colonizes the human nasopharyngeal epithelium. Asymptomatic carriage is common, but some meningococcal strains can invade nasopharyngeal epithelial cells and proceed to cause severe and often fatal infections. Invasion is predominantly driven by expression of bacterial virulence factors and host cell cognate receptors for bacterial recognition. Porins are among the Neisserial components involved in host cell activation and bacterial internalization processes. Similar to other virulence factors, porins present antigenic and structure variability among strains. Such sequence variability in the surface-exposed loop regions has been correlated to bacterial invasiveness and to variability in host cell responses vi

SUBMITTER: Toussi DN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5050100 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature