Autophagy in intracellular bacterial infection

Numerous pathogens have developed the capacity to invade host cells to be protected from components of the systemic immune system. However, once in the host cells they utilize sophisticated strategies to avoid the powerful machinery built by the cells to kill invading pathogens. In the last few years cumulative evidence indicates that autophagy is one of the most remarkable tools of the intracellular host cell defense machinery that bacteria must confront upon cell invasion. However, several pathogens subvert the autophagic pathway and, manipulate this process at the molecular level, as a strategy to establish a persistent infection. In this review we have summarized the interaction between autophagy and different bacterial pathogens including those that take advantage of the host cell autophagy, allowing successful colonization, as well as those microorganisms which are controlled by autophagy as part of the innate surveillance mechanism. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.