Subversive pro- and anti-inflammation trade-offs promote infection by Listeria monocytogenes (Infect-ERA, PROANTILIS)

Listeriosis is a leading cause of death from food-transmitted bacterial pathogens. It can cause infections in the blood stream and brain, and lead to abortion, neonatal infection and fetal death. The causative organism, Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), is a Gram-positive, environmentally ubiquitous bacterium that can breach intestinal, blood-brain and placental barriers. The clinical course of listeriosis has initially no specific symptoms until Lm reaches the central nervous system and/or the fetal-placental barrier. Thus Lm induces little inflammation in the host, either at the intestinal level or systemically. Proposing that anti-inflammatory responses mediated by bacterial factors are an essential component of Lm’s disease-causing potential, the project seeks to identify and characterize the bacterial factors that cause the suppression of the clinical symptoms of listeriosis.