What is it about?
Shigella is a gastrointestinal pathogen that causes diarrheal disease. During pathogenesis, Shigella invades intestinal cells and metabolizes host sugars, and in so doing secretes the byproduct formate. We show that this formate accumulates in the host cells and causes Shigella to increase virulence factors that contribute to disease.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Our findings demonstrate that Shigella uses its own metabolic byproduct to regulate pathogenesis, allowing the bacteria to coordinate its virulence according to its metabolism and intracellular density.
Perspectives
This was a really interesting study to work on, and I hope this article helps people think about different ways bacteria can sense their surroundings and communicate with each other.
Benjamin Koestler
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Formate Promotes Shigella Intercellular Spread and Virulence Gene Expression, mBio, September 2018, ASM Journals,
DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01777-18.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
