Membrane vesicles released by bacteria may play different roles during infection
Together with her research colleagues and in collaborations , doctoral student Svitlana Vdovikova showed that MVs can have varying functions by using two different pathogenic bacteria as examples: Vibrio cholerae and Listeria monocytogenes. Vibrio cholerae causes cholera, a disease taking thousands of lives each year in developing countries. Listeria monocytogenes causes listeriosis, which leads to a deadly infection in one third of the cases and is especially dangerous for pregnant women and their fetuses, newborn children, and immunocompromised people. The researchers found that MVs from both Vibrio cholerae and Listeria monocytogenes transport so-called pore-forming toxins (PFTs). These proteins usually cause a range of toxic effects on the targeted human cells due to the formation of pores in cell membranes. "Pore-forming toxin delivered by Vibrio cholerae MVs activate autophagy, which serves as a cellular defence mechanism. In contrast, we found that the pore-forming to...