Biomaterial Database

How is the intracellular fate of the Legionella pneumophila phagosome determined? 1998

G Segal, and H A Shuman

Dept of Microbiology, College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.

The following pair of articles, the first by Gil Segal and Howard Shuman, and the second by James Kirby and Ralph Isberg (Trends Microbiol. 6, 256-258), explore the genetics and function of the icm/dot genes of Legionella pneumophila. This gene family is implicated in several aspects of virulence and appears to constitute components of a conjugal transfer system that has been adopted to prevent phagosome-lysosome fusion in the host cell and to mediate host cytotoxicity by pore formation. Whether these functions are natural consequences or operate in parallel remains to be discovered.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D010588	Phagosomes	Membrane-bound cytoplasmic vesicles formed by invagination of phagocytized material. They fuse with lysosomes to form phagolysosomes in which the hydrolytic enzymes of the lysosome digest the phagocytized material.	Phagolysosomes,Phagolysosome,Phagosome
D005798	Genes, Bacterial	The functional hereditary units of BACTERIA.	Bacterial Gene,Bacterial Genes,Gene, Bacterial
D016952	Legionella pneumophila	A species of gram-negative, aerobic bacteria that is the causative agent of LEGIONNAIRES' DISEASE. It has been isolated from numerous environmental sites as well as from human lung tissue, respiratory secretions, and blood.