Targeting One of its Own: Expanding Roles of Substrates of the Legionella Pneumophila Dot/Icm Type IV Secretion System

Zhao-Qing Luo

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2011.00031

Abstract

Targeting One of its Own: Expanding Roles of Substrates of the Legionella Pneumophila Dot/Icm Type IV Secretion System

Highlights

To cope with the dynamic response from the host, bacterial pathogens can employ several strategies to achieve temporal regulation of the activity of their virulence factors
In S. typhimurium, bacterial entry is induced by SopE, a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for the Rho family of small GTPases, an activity that is antagonized by the GTPase activation protein (GAP) SopE
As a result of apoptosis induced by L. pneumophila challenge, infected cells contains active caspases 3 and 7, but the activity of these enzymes presumably can be inhibited by IAPs induced by the bacterium itself (Abu-Zant et al, 2005, 2007; Losick and Isberg, 2006; Nogueira et al, 2009)

Summary

Introduction

To cope with the dynamic response from the host, bacterial pathogens can employ several strategies to achieve temporal regulation of the activity of their virulence factors. The most commonly used mechanism is to regulate expression of virulence factors at the transcriptional level in response to environmental cues present during different phases of infection. The second is to control the translocation efficiency of effectors at posttranslational level, which is exemplified by small RNA-mediated regulation of effector transfer in Salmonella typhimurium (Padalon-Brauch et al, 2008).

Results

Conclusion