Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative intracellular bacterial pathogen that is frequently associated with food-borne infection. Of particular concern is the ability of L. monocytogenes to breach the blood-brain barrier, leading to life-threatening meningitis and encephalitis. The mechanisms used by bacterial pathogens to infect the brain are not fully understood. Here we show that L. monocyto...

OBJECTIVES Disruption of the intestinal barrier and bacterial translocation commonly occur when intestinal blood flow is compromised. The aim of this study was to determine whether liver resection induces intestinal damage. METHODS We investigated intestinal fatty-acid binding protein and insulin-like growth factor binding protein levels in the plasma of patients who underwent liver resection...

PURPOSE The scarified cornea keratitis model was modified to study Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection of healing corneal epithelium. The new model was then used to study the role of ExsA, a transcriptional activator of P. aeruginosa, in bacterial penetration through injured and healing corneal epithelia. METHODS Scratch-injured corneas of C57BL/6 mice were allowed to heal for 0, 6, 9, or 12 hou...

Necrotizing enterocolitis is the most frequently occurring gastrointestinal disorder in premature neonates. Animal models of necrotizing enterocolitis and prenatal administration of cortisone have demonstrated that cortisone may accelerate maturation of the mucosal barrier, therefore reducing the incidence of this gastrointestinal disorder. The authors present a review of the literature of the ...

Tight junctions are dynamic structures that may undergo structural and functional changes in response to both physiological and pathological circumstances. Several microbial pathogens impair intestinal barrier function by exploiting tight junctions. These pathogens have developed a broad and complex range of strategies to subvert host tight junction barrier function. The purpose of this review ...

introduction: actinomycosis is a systemic chronic bacterial infection caused by actinomyces israelii, an anaerobic organism normally resident in the human mouth. however, the actinomycosis of the larynx is very rare, and only about 15 cases have been reported in the literature so far. most of the cases reported occurred in patients who had previously undergone radiotherapy for laryngeal cancer....

inflammatory bowel disease (ibd) is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract and includes ulcerative colitis and crohn’s disease. during last decades, the incidence of ibd   has increased, both in children as well as in adults (1–3). while the precise etiology of ibd is unknown, inflammatory bowel disease occure due to an abnormal immune response to luminal antigens i...

Bacterial infections, frequently caused by bacteria of enteric origin, are often seen during the progression of severe acute pancreatitis, concomitant with the potential development of multiple organ dysfunction. In the present paper, the complex mechanisms of gut barrier dysfunction and gut origin sepsis in acute pancreatitis are discussed. The individual parts of the gut barrier, e.g. the imm...

We previously showed that vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) protects against bacterial pathogen-induced epithelial barrier disruption and colitis, although the mechanisms remain poorly defined. The aim of the current study was to identify cellular pathways of VIP-mediated protection with use of pharmacological inhibitors during enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) infection of Caco-2 cell...