Dynamic imaging of host-pathogen interactions in vivo.

In the past decade, advances in microscopic imaging methods, together with the development of genetically encoded fluorescent reporters, have made it possible to directly visualize the behaviour of cells in living tissues. At the same time, immunologists have been turning their attention from the traditional focus on responses to model antigens to a new focus on in vivo infection models. Recently, these two trends have intersected with exciting results. Here we discuss how dynamic imaging of in vivo infection has revealed fascinating and unexpected details of host-pathogen interactions at a new level of spatial and temporal resolution.