Listeria and listeriosis: new insights into a fascinating infectious process
Event details
| Date | 03.04.2009 |
| Hour | 15:30 |
| Speaker | Pascale Cossart |
| Location |
SV 1717a
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Listeria monocytogenes is an ubiquitous bacterium that can contaminate food products and induce several forms of a disease called listeriosis, an infection which is mortal in 30% of the cases. Infection is mainly due to the capacity of the organism to live and replicate in both phagocytic and non phagocytic cells. It is also due to the property of the organism to be able to cross three host barriers during infection, the intestinal barrier, the blood brain barrier and in pregnant women the materno-fetal barrier. A series of approaches have highlighted that this bacterium has evolved tightly regulated mechanisms to switch from saprohytic life to virulence, to escape early innate host immune defense, to invade non phagocytic cells, to spread from cell to cell and to cross host barriers. Recent progress in our understanding of the mechanisms used by Listeria in these different steps have helped discovering new general concepts in infection biology and cell biology, sometimes against well established dogmas !
Links
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- Prof. Gisou van der Goot