Listeria monocytogenes and the Genus Listeria
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Listeria monocytogenes and the Genus Listeria NADIA KHELEF, MARC LECUIT, CARMEN BUCHRIESER, DIDIER CABANES, OLIVIER DUSSURGET AND PASCALE COSSART
Introduction The genus Listeria contains six species, two of which are pathogenic: Listeria monocytogenes, the food-borne human pathogen responsible for listeriosis, on which this chapter is focused, and L. ivanovii, an animal pathogen. Listeriae are Gram-positive rod-shaped bacteria with low G+C content, which are found in a variety of animals and niches, including processed food. They are resistant to extreme conditions, such as low temperature or high salt, demonstrating a great adaptability to their environment (Vazquez-Boland et al., 2001). Listeria monocytogenes infections cause gastroenteritis, meningitis, neuro-encephalitis, chorioamnionitis, abortions, and neonatal infections. Listeriosis is associated with a high mortality rate, particularly in immunocompromized individuals (Schlech, 2000). In addition to its medical importance, L. monocytogenes contamination of food products raises important economic issues in the food industry. Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative intracellular pathogen. It has evolved a panoply of virulence factors, which exploit important cellular processes during infection (Cossart et al., 2003; Cossart and Sansonetti, 2004). Listeria monocytogenes has emerged as a genetically manipulable tool to address key cell biology processes, such as phagocytosis, actin-based motility and signaling through growth factor receptors (Cameron et al., 2000; Cossart and Bierne, 2001; Bierne and Cossart, 2002a). Moreover, as a result of its intracellular life, L. monocytogenes mediates a strong T-cell response and is widely used as a model to study the CD8-mediated immunity of intracellular parasites (Edelson and Unanue, 2000; Badovinac et al., 2003; Lara-Tejero and Pamer, 2004). The detailed mechanisms of the immune response to L. monocytogenes will not be treated in this review, as they are elegantly and largely reviewed (Edelson and Unanue, 2000; Unanue, 2002; Badovinac et al., 2003; Lara-Tejero and Pamer, 2004, Pamer, 2004). The combined use of genetics, cell biology, functional genomics and
post-sequencing studies has led to a precise understanding of L. monocytogenes infections. Comparative genomics of L. monocytogenes with the nonpathogenic species L. innocua, and other Listeria species can now be fully exploited for the study of virulence, regulation and biodiversity of Listeriae (Glaser et al., 2001; Cabanes et al., 2002; Buchrieser et al., 2003; Doumith et al., 2004a).
The Discovery of Listeriosis and Listeriae Listeriosis was first described in the late 1920s and proposed to be contracted through oral contamination. This hypothesis was confirmed in the 1960s. A series of outbreaks in industrialized countries during the 1970s and 1980s definitely established that L. monocytogenes was indeed responsible for food-borne listeriosis (Schlech, 1984; Rocourt and Cossart, 1997)
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