Antiphagocytosis - a bacterial mechanism to inhibit phagocytosis

Abstract

When bacteria have entered the body, the immune system will be activated. Phagocytes start to ingest the bacteria. Bacteria developed several strategies to avoid or survive phagocytosis. Some of these, immune evasion and antiphagocytosis, are often mixed up in the literature. In this thesis, antiphagocytosis is discussed. Whereas with immune evasion the bacterium hides itself from the immune system, with antiphagocytosis the bacterium remains actively extracellular, even after recognition by the immune system, by injecting effector proteins into the host cell cytoplasm or secrete toxins which penetrate through the host cell membrane which target host cell proteins resulting either direct or indirect in the impairment of the cytoskeleton assembly, resulting in the inability of the host cell to manipulate their membrane to engulf the recognized bacterium.