Open AccessProductive Chlamydia trachomatis lymphogranuloma venereum 434 infection in cells with augmented or inactivated autophagic activities
Author(s) -
Pachikara Niseema,
Zhang Haiyan,
Pan Zui,
Jin Shengkan,
Fan Huizhou
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
fems microbiology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.899
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1574-6968
pISSN - 0378-1097
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2009.01494.x
Subject(s) - chlamydia trachomatis , autophagy , biology , intracellular parasite , microbiology and biotechnology , lymphogranuloma venereum , obligate , chlamydia , chlamydiae , intracellular , atg5 , virology , immunology , genetics , apoptosis , ecology
Autophagy, a eukaryotic cellular activity leading to the degradation of cellular components, serves as a defense mechanism against facultative intracellular bacteria as well as a growth niche for the obligate intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii . We here demonstrate that the obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis lymphogranuloma venereum strongly induced autophagy in the middle of the chlamydial developmental cycle (24 h after infection), a time point with maximal level of chlamydial replication, but not during the early stages with low overall chlamydial metabolism (before 8 h). No autophagy induction was evident in cells exposed to heat‐ and UV‐inactivated elementary bodies (EBs, the infectious form of Chlamydia ) or to inocula from which EBs had been removed before inoculation. Blocking chlamydial development with chloramphenicol also prevented autophagy induction in cells infected with infectious EBs. It appears that autophagy is activated primarily in response to the metabolic stress consequent to chlamydial replication. However, autophagy‐defective ATG5 −/− cells supported chlamydial development as efficiently as autophagy‐proficient ATG5 +/+ cells.