Yersinia virulence factors: a sophisticated arsenal for combating host defences

Atkinson, Steve; Williams, Paul

Abstract

The human pathogens Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and Yersinia enterocolitica cause enterocolitis, while Yersinia pestis is responsible for pneumonic, bubonic, and septicaemic plague. All three share an infection strategy that relies on a virulence factor arsenal to enable them to enter, adhere to, and colonise the host while evading host defences to avoid untimely clearance. Their arsenal includes a number of adhesins that allow the invading pathogens to establish a foothold in the host and to adhere to specific tissues later during infection. When the host innate immune system has been activated, all three pathogens produce a structure analogous to a hypodermic needle. In conjunction with the translocon, which forms a pore in the host membrane, the channel that is formed enables the transfer of six ‘effector’ proteins into the host cell cytoplasm. These proteins mimic host cell proteins but are more efficient than their native counterparts at modifying the host cell cytoskeleton, triggering the host cell suicide response. Such a sophisticated arsenal ensures that yersiniae maintain the upper hand despite the best efforts of the host to counteract the infecting pathogen.

Citation

Atkinson, S., & Williams, P. (2016). Yersinia virulence factors: a sophisticated arsenal for combating host defences. F1000Research, 5, 1370. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8466.1

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 14, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 14, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 14, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 6, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 24, 2019
• Journal: F1000Research
• Electronic ISSN: 2046-1402
• Publisher: F1000Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 5
• Article Number: 1370
• Pages: 1370
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8466.1
• Public URL: http://f1000research.com/articles/5-1370/v1
• Publisher URL: https://f1000research.com/articles/5-1370/v1
• Additional Information: Referee status: Indexed; Referee Report: 10.5256/f1000research.9116.r14362, James Bliska, Center for Infectious Diseases and Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA, 14 Jun 2016, version 1, indexed; Referee Report: 10.5256/f1000research.9116.r14363, Andrew Roe, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, and Institute of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, 14 Jun 2016, version 1, indexed; Grant Information: The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work; Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.