INTERACTION OF BRUCELLA ABORTUS WITH POLARIZED EPITHELIAL CELLS

GIMÉNEZ AB; SPERA JM; UGALDE JE; CZIBENER C.

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Reunion Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias de Argentina; 2017

Comite organizador de Reunión Conjunta de sociedades de Biociencias

Brucella, the bacterial agent of the worldwide distributed zoonosis brucellosis, primarily infects host phagocytes, coursing an intracellular life cycle within a membrane-bound compartment known as the Brucella-containing vacuole. Our laboratory has recently demonstrated that Brucella adheres and invades a polarized epithelial cell culture such as the Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells through the basolateral face. Our results indicate that Brucella traffics in MDCK cells, modulating actin polymerization in the process and triggering its own egress in order to infect new cells. Moreover, infection of polarized cells grown in transwells suggested that the egress occurs through the basolateral face of the cell. Confocal analysis of these infected cells stained with antibodies against the apical and basolateral marker p58 confirmed this hypothesis.