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Safe living within a parasitophorous vacuole: The recipe of success by Toxoplasma gondii
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Edité par CCSD ; Transworld Res. Network, Kerala, India -
International audience. While most intracellular pathogens typically enter mammalian cells by phagocytosis or by induced-uptake, leading to the engulfment of the microbe into a membrane-bound vacuole, the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii drives its own entrance, using a multiple step process which gives rise to a newly formed, fusion-incompetent compartment, the so-called "parasitophorous vacuole" (PV). The parasite-mediated vacuole formation is governed by highly coordinated molecular events which involve parasite specific organelles such as three types of specialized secretory organelles, namely the micronemes, the rhoptries and the dense granules. In this chapter, we will review the several molecular steps which allow the parasite to propel itself into the host cell and form its PV, highlighting the recent molecular studies on the subject. In the last part of this chapter, we will review what is currently known on the gradual transformation of PVs into intracellular dormant cysts which persist in muscles and in the brain. Thanks to these mechanisms, Toxoplasma gondii stands as one of the most successful parasites: it can indeed infect virtually any kind of nucleated cell and it establishes a long lasting chronic infection in any warm-blooded animal, including human beings.
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