How Salmonella divides labour – cooperative virulence among intracellular Salmonella Typhimurium

The researchers show that production of effectors by a subpopulation of intracellular Salmonella protects the non-producing bacteria and enables them to proliferate efficiently inside the host epithelial cells and macrophages. The distinct transcriptional pattern depends on tight but plastic regulatory mechanism thus enabling changes in the proportion of bacteria expressing crucial virulence factors. Furthermore, this distinct expression facilitates egress of the bacteria from infected cells. Their findings, published in PLOS Pathogens, broadens our understanding of bacterial virulence and could be instrumental to other studies of other bacterial pathogens.

Laboratory of Bacterial Virulence

PUBLICATION

Pospíšilová M, Dreus A, Matheova P, Schmidtova J, Pravdova B, Blazikova M, et al. (2025) Bimodal expression of Type 3 Secretion System 2 enables cooperative virulence among intracellular Salmonella Typhimurium. PLoS Pathog 21(12): e1013728. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1013728