Apoptosis induced by bacterial pathogens.

Programmed cell death is part of normal development and homeostasis. Apoptosis induced by bacteria appears to contribute to infectious diseases. Some bacteria produce toxins to kill host cells by the same pathway, apoptosis, through different mechanisms including pore formation, protein synthesis inhibition or adenylate cyclase activity. Other bacterial pathogens' mechanisms to induce apoptosis, for example, that of S. flexneri, remain to be elucidated. How the bacterial toxins or the bacteria interact with eukaryotic cell-death-related genes and then possibly trigger a cell-death program would make an interesting study. The understanding of the mechanism of apoptosis induced by bacteria could be important in the development of therapy and prevention of infectious diseases.