Anti-Immune Trick Unveiled in Salmonella

In the 15 July EMBO Journal, microbiologists report on a surprising new weapon that may help explain Salmonella9s virulence: At least one species can create an intracellular traffic jam within certain of the host9s immune cells. The researchers found that Salmonella enterica, which causes food poisoning, shoots a protein called SpiC into the host cell9s cytoplasm, somehow clogging an intracellular transport system that would normally dump the organism into a toxic cellular chamber called the lysosome.