A proteomics study on how Chlamydia pneumoniae affects macrophages

What is it about?

This piece of research work describes how Chlamydia pneumoniae, a gram-negative intracellular bacterium, alters the properties of macrophages when infecting them. The proteomics study identified several up- and downregulated macrophage proteins in the infected cells, showing that the bacterium can alter the macrophage differentiation in a manner that resembles certain features of a cellular phenotype suppressing immune responses. Furthermore, the follow-up studies performed on a subset of altered proteins identified by proteomics revealed that the changes occurring in cell cycle regulation machinery have an impact on the ability of C. pneumoniae to grow inside these cells.

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Why is it important?

This is the first published study on the whole-proteome level changes induced by Chlamydia pneumoniae in immune cells. while various earlier studies have described the induction of individual proinflammatory molecules in macrophages by C. pneumoniae, the signaling pathways mediating Chlamydia - host interactions and the importance of different intracellular proteins on the course of C. pneumoniae infection had not been studied in proteome level before this work.

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