Work

ProductiveChlamydia trachomatislymphogranuloma venereum 434 infection in cells with augmented or inactivated autophagic activities

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: Autophagy, a eukaryotic cellular activity leading to the degradation of cellular components, serves as a defense mechanism against facultative intracellular bacteria as well as a growth niche for the obligate intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii. We here demonstrate that the obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis lymphogranuloma venereum strongly induced autophagy in the middle of the chlamydial developmental cycle (24 h after infection), a time point with maximal level of chlamydial replication, but not during the early stages with low overall chlamydial metabolism (before 8 h). No autophagy induction was evident in cells exposed to heat- and UV-inactivated elementary bodies (EBs, the infectious form of Chlamydia) or to inocula from which EBs had been removed before inoculation. Blocking chlamydial development with chloramphenicol also prevented autophagy induction in cells infected with infectious EBs. It appears that autophagy is activated primarily in response to the metabolic stress consequent to chlamydial replication. However, autophagy-defective ATG5(-/-) cells supported chlamydial development as efficiently as autophagy-proficient ATG5(+/+) cells.

Source: FEMS Microbiology Letters

DOI: 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2009.01494.x

Authors: Niseema Pachikara, Haiyan Zhang, Zui Pan, Shengkan Jin, Huizhou Fan

Institutions: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Language: English

Topic: Autophagy in Disease and Therapy

Subfield: Epidemiology

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: Institut National Du Cancer, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases