Recent Advances on the Innate Immune Response to Coxiella burnetii
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Annalisa Guercio; José de la Fuente; Guido Sireci; Valeria Blanda; Laura di Paola; Francesca Grippi; Diana Di Liberto; Giusto Davide Badami; Alessandra Torina
- Source
- Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, Vol 11 (2021)
Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
instname
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
- Subject
- Microbiology (medical)
Lipopolysaccharides
Immunology
experimental model
cytokine—immunological terms
Q fever
immunotherapeutic
Review
Microbiology
Immune system
Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Toll-like receptor
inflammasome
autophagia
medicine
Animals
Humans
Pathogen
innate immunity
Innate immune system
Obligate
biology
Transmission (medicine)
Macrophages
Inflammasome
Coxiella burnetii
biology.organism_classification
medicine.disease
bacterial infections and mycoses
Immunity, Innate
QR1-502
Toll-like receptors
immunotherapeutics
Infectious Diseases
bacteria
Q Fever
cytokine—immunological term
medicine.drug
- Language
- English
Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular Gram-negative bacterium and the causative agent of a worldwide zoonosis known as Q fever. The pathogen invades monocytes and macrophages, replicating within acidic phagolysosomes and evading host defenses through different immune evasion strategies that are mainly associated with the structure of its lipopolysaccharide. The main transmission routes are aerosols and ingestion of fomites from infected animals. The innate immune system provides the first host defense against the microorganism, and it is crucial to direct the infection towards a self-limiting respiratory disease or the chronic form. This review reports the advances in understanding the mechanisms of innate immunity acting during C. burnetii infection and the strategies that pathogen put in place to infect the host cells and to modify the expression of specific host cell genes in order to subvert cellular processes. The mechanisms through which different cell types with different genetic backgrounds are differently susceptible to C. burnetii intracellular growth are discussed. The subsets of cytokines induced following C. burnetii infection as well as the pathogen influence on an inflammasome-mediated response are also described. Finally, we discuss the use of animal experimental systems for studying the innate immune response against C. burnetii and discovering novel methods for prevention and treatment of disease in humans and livestock.
This research was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health with grants RC IZSSI 08/19 and RC IZSSI 01/20.