How cells defend their cytosol against invasive bacteria
Felix Randow, group leader at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University
Intracellular pathogens colonize specific subcellular niches determined by their requirement for host-derived nutrients and antagonized by compartment-specific immunity. Most intracellular bacteria dwell in phagosomes and only few species have succeeded in conquering the cytosol, a perhaps counterintuitive situation given the abundance of nutrients freely available in the cytosol. Potent cytosolic defence mechanisms must therefore exist.
I will discuss how cells defend their cytosol against bacterial invasion through autophagy, triggered either upon sensing membrane damage caused by bacterial entry into the cytosol or through the deposition of ubiquitin on the bacterial surface.