The bacterium Escherichia coli is part of the healthy human intestinal flora. However, E. coli also has pathogenic relatives that trigger diarrhea illnesses: enterohemorrhagic E.coli bacteria.
During the course of an infection they infest the intestinal mucosa, causing injury in the process, in contrast to benign bacteria.
The EHECs adhere to the surface of the mucosal cells and alter them internally: a part of the cellular supportive skeleton - the actin skeleton - is rearranged in such a manner that the cell surface beneath the bacteria forms plinth-like growths, so-called pedestals. The bacteria are securely anchored to this pedestal; the pedestals, in contrast, are mobile. This enables the bacteria, seated upon them, to surf over the cell surface and reproduce upon it, without being flushed from the intestine. But how do the bacteria bring the host cells to convert the actin skeleton? Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have now identified the signal pathway that leads to the formation of this pedestal.
"Prerequisite for this signal pathway is a special secretion system - a sort of molecular syringe, through which the bacteria insert entire proteins in the host cell," explains Theresia Stradal, head of the Signal Transduction and Motility research group at HZI. Two factors, Tir and EspFU, are brought into the host cell from the bacterium for pedestal formation. Following this, the host cell presents Tir on its surface; the bacterium recognises "its" molecule Tir and adheres to the host cell. EspFU then triggers the signal for local actin conversion.