Dr Felix Randow - MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology - University of Cambridge

Cell-autonomous immunity: How cells defend their cytosol against invasive bacteria

Intracellular pathogens colonize specific subcellular niches determined by their requirement for host-derived nutrients and antagonized by compartment-specific immunity. Most intracellular bacteria dwell in phagosomes and only few species have succeeded in conquering the cytosol, a counterintuitive situation given the abundance of nutrients freely available in the cytosol. Potent cytosolic defense mechanisms must therefore exist. I will discuss how cells defend their cytosol against bacterial invasion through autophagy as we have discovered novel triggers for anti-bacterial autophagy, namely the detection of sphingomyelin on damaged phagosomes by TECPR1 and the ubiquitylation of LPS on Gram-negative bacteria by RNF213.