Phagocytosis of bacterial pathogens: implications in the host response.

Phagocytosis of bacterial pathogens is at the heart of the pathogenesis of infections. Pathogens have evolved a large array of strategies to escape the deleterious effect of phagocytosis by professional phagocytes among which avoiding phagocytosis, killing the phagocytes or surviving inside them are the most 'popular' solutions. Bacterial pathogens are also using induction of phagocytic entry into non-professional phagocytic cells, such as epithelial cells, as a strategy of survival and multiplication. We have taken enteroinvasive micro-organisms such as Yersinia, Shigella and Salmonella as a paradigm of the significance of phagocytosis/antiphagocytosis in the development of an infection and on the elicitation of the host response. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.