Induction of Apoptosis during Intracellular Replication of <i>Legionella pneumophila</i> in the Lungs of Mice

TL;DRAbstract

Legionella pneumophila has been shown to induce apoptosis within macrophages, monocytic cell lines, and alveolar epithelial cells. This chapter addresses the Dot/Icm-mediated induction of apoptosis in genetically susceptible A/J mice during L. pneumophila infection. In an experiment A/J and BALB/c mice were intratracheally inoculated with 106 cfu of L. pneumophila AA100- green fluorescent protein (GFP) or the dotA-GFP mutant. At different time points after infection (2, 24, 48, and 72 h) mice were sacrificed and the lungs were removed. It has been recently shown that robust activation of caspase-3 is exhibited throughout the early and exponential intracellular replication of L. pneumophila, but apoptosis is delayed and is not triggered in the infected cells until the late stages of infection, concomitant with termination of intracellular replication. L. pneumophila AA100 induces apoptosis in vivo during the late stages of Legionnaires' disease in experimental animals. Genetically susce

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