Abstract
Brucella is an intracellular bacterium that causes abortion, reproduction failure in livestock and leads to a debilitating flu-like illness with serious chronic complications if untreated in humans. As a successful intracellular pathogen, Brucella has developed strategies to avoid recognition by the immune system of the host and promote its survival and replication. In vivo, Brucellae reside mostly within phagocytes and other cells including trophoblasts, where they establish a preferred replicative niche inside the endoplasmic reticulum. This process is central as it gives Brucella the ability to maintain replicating-surviving cycles for long periods of time, even at low bacterial numbers, in its cellular niches. In this review, we propose that Brucella takes advantage of the environment provided by the cellular niches in which it resides to generate reservoirs and disseminate to other organs. We will discuss how the favored cellular niches for Brucella infection in the host give rise to anatomical reservoirs that may lead to chronic infections or persistence in asymptomatic subjects, and which may be considered as a threat for further contamination. A special emphasis will be put on bone marrow, lymph nodes, reproductive and for the first time adipose tissues, as well as wildlife reservoirs.
Highlights
Brucella is a Gram-negative facultative intracellular coccobacillus, responsible for brucellosis, a worldwide zoonotic disease that affects livestock, wildlife, and humans
We propose that the intracellular replication niche conditions the basis for the establishment of the reservoirs in which Brucella persists inside its host
Brucella transits inside the cell engulfed in a phagosome, and multiple virulence factors help the bacteria evade the phagocytic pathway by restricting fusion of the Brucella containing vacuole (BCV) with a lysosome
Summary
Brucella is a Gram-negative facultative intracellular coccobacillus, responsible for brucellosis, a worldwide zoonotic disease that affects livestock, wildlife, and humans. Human brucellosis is at the origin of many symptoms namely undulating fever, malaise, fatigue, and anorexia If untreated, it may progress into a chronic phase, characterized by the appearance of severe complications like endocarditis, orchitis, spondylitis, osteomyelitis, arthritis, meningoencephalitis, and recurring febrile conditions [23,24,25,26]. It may progress into a chronic phase, characterized by the appearance of severe complications like endocarditis, orchitis, spondylitis, osteomyelitis, arthritis, meningoencephalitis, and recurring febrile conditions [23,24,25,26] In domestic animals, such as cattle, sheep, goats, and swine, major consequences include abortion and metritis in females, and orchiepididymitis and infertility in males [27], resulting in reduced fertility and a significant decline in milk production [28]. Natural infection occurs by direct contact with infected animals or their secretions [30], like aborted fetuses and fetal membranes that contain large amounts of the bacteria [31]
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