engleski

Bacteria as a facultative symbiots of free-living amoebae

Free-living amoebae such as Acanthamoeba and Hartmanella are environmental hosts of several intracellular pathogens such as Legionella, Chlamydia, and Mycobacterium. As most of these bacteria are pathogens of humans, amoebae have been suggested to act as "trojan horses" of microbial world. Since the host reservoir of F. tularensis in water system is not known we used H. vermiformis, which is the most predominant non-pathogenic amoeba in water resources, as an amebal model system to study the intracellular life of F. novicida. Our data indicate that F. novicida survives within H. vermiformis and that the bacteria do not escape into the cytoplasm, which is very distinct from the lifestyle of F. novicida within mammalian cells.

bacteria; amoeba; intracellular life

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