Abstract
Facultative intracellular pathogens pose an important health problem because they circumvent a primary defense mechanism of the host: killing and degradation by professional phagocytic cells. A gene of the intracellular pathogen Salmonella typhimurium that is required for virulence and intracellular survival was identified and shown to have a role in resistance to defensins and possibly to other microbicidal mechanisms of the phagocyte. This gene may prove to be a regulatory element in the expression of virulence functions.
Publication types
-
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
-
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
MeSH terms
-
Animals
-
Blood Proteins / physiology*
-
Cytoplasmic Granules / analysis
-
DNA, Bacterial / genetics
-
Defensins
-
Genes, Bacterial*
-
Humans
-
Macrophages / analysis
-
Macrophages / physiology
-
Mice
-
Mice, Inbred BALB C
-
Mutation
-
Neutrophils / analysis
-
Nucleic Acid Hybridization
-
Phagocytes / physiology*
-
Plasmids
-
Rabbits
-
Salmonella typhimurium / genetics*
-
Salmonella typhimurium / pathogenicity
Substances
-
Blood Proteins
-
DNA, Bacterial
-
Defensins