Listeria pathogenesis and molecular virulence determinants

The gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is the causative agent of listeriosis, a highly fatal opportunistic foodborne infection. Pregnant women, neonates, the elderly, and debilitated or immunocompromised patients in general are predominantly affected, although the disease can also develop in normal individuals. Clinical manifestations of invasive listeriosis are usually severe and include abortion, sepsis, and meningoencephalitis. Listeriosis can also manifest as a febrile gastroenteritis syndrome. In addition to humans, L. monocytogenes affects many vertebrate species, including birds. Listeria ivanovii, a second pathogenic species of the genus, is specific for ruminants. Our current view of the pathophysiology of listeriosis derives largely from studies with the mouse infection model. Pathogenic listeriae enter the host primarily through the intestine. The liver is thought to be their first target organ after intestinal translocation. In the liver, listeriae actively multiply until the infection is controlled by a cell-mediated immune response. This initial, subclinical step of listeriosis is thought to be common due to the frequent presence of pathogenic L. monocytogenes in food. In normal indivuals, the continual exposure to listerial antigens probably contributes to the maintenance of anti-Listeria memory T cells. However, in debilitated and immunocompromised patients, the unrestricted proliferation of listeriae in the liver may result in prolonged low-level bacteremia, leading to invasion of the preferred secondary target organs (the brain and the gravid uterus) and to overt clinical disease. L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii are facultative intracellular parasites able to survive in macrophages and to invade a variety of normally nonphagocytic cells, such as epithelial cells, hepatocytes, and endothelial cells. In all these cell types, pathogenic listeriae go through an intracellular life cycle involving early escape from the phagocytic vacuole, rapid intracytoplasmic multiplication, bacterially induced actin-based motility, and direct spread to neighboring cells, in which they reinitiate the cycle. In this way, listeriae disseminate in host tissues sheltered from the humoral arm of the immune system. Over the last 15 years, a number of virulence factors involved in key steps of this intracellular life cycle have been identified. This review describes in detail the molecular determinants of Listeria virulence and their mechanism of action and summarizes the current knowledge on the pathophysiology of listeriosis and the cell biology and host cell responses to Listeria infection. This article provides an updated perspective of the development of our understanding of Listeria pathogenesis from the first molecular genetic analyses of virulence mechanisms reported in 1985 until the start of the genomic era of Listeria research

Excision repair is required for genotoxin-induced mutagenesis in mammalian cells

Certain hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] compounds are human lung carcinogens. Although much is known about Cr-induced DNA damage, very little is known about mechanisms of Cr(VI) mutagenesis and the role that DNA repair plays in this process. Our goal was to investigate the role of excision repair (ER) pathways in Cr(VI)-mediated mutagenesis in mammalian cells. Repair-proficient Chinese hamster ovary cells (AA8), nucleotide excision repair (NER)-deficient (UV-5) and base excision repair (BER)-inhibited cells were treated with Cr(VI) and monitored for forward mutation frequency at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) locus. BER was inhibited using methoxyamine hydrochloride (Mx), which binds to apurinic/apyrimidinic sites generated during BER. Notably, we found that both NER-deficient (UV-5 and UV-41) and BER-inhibited (AA8 + Mx) cells displayed attenuated Cr(VI) mutagenesis. To determine whether this was unique to Cr(VI), we included the alkylating agent, methylmethane sulfonate (MMS) and ultraviolet (UV) radiation (260 nm) in our studies. Similar to Cr(VI), UV-5 cells exhibited a marked attenuation of MMS mutagenesis, but were hypermutagenic following UV exposure. Moreover, UV-5 cells expressing human xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group D displayed similar sensitivity to Cr(VI) and MMS-induced mutagenesis as AA8 controls, indicating that the genetic loss of NER was responsible for attenuated mutagenesis. Interestingly, Cr(VI)-induced clastogenesis was also attenuated in NER-deficient and BER-inhibited cells. Taken together, our results suggest that NER and BER are required for Cr(VI) and MMS-induced genomic instability. We postulate that, in the absence of ER, DNA damage is channeled into an error-free system of DNA repair or damage tolerance