How we raised Listeria to the rank of a model system

During more than three decades, to investigate the molecular and cellular basis of infections by intracellular bacteria, we have studied the infection by the intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. This food-borne pathogen disseminates from the gut to the brain and the placenta providing an interesting model to address  a variety of questions such as how bacteria cross barriers, and survive in different niches of the body and how cells react when invaded by a bacterium.  We have used a variety of approaches. Our investigations have led to new concepts not only in infection biology but also in cell biology and epigenetics and in fundamental microbiology (e.g. novel RNA-mediated regulations, and a never described mechanism of antibiotic resistance). More recently our team has discovered that Listeria encodes genes for bacteriocins which play a key role in bacterial interactions with the microbiome, paving the way to understand the role of some intestinal commensals in infection. The talk will highlights some of the most striking results which have raised Listeria to the rank of a model system.

For a recent review

Radoshevich L. and P. Cossart. Listeria monocytogenes : towards a complete picture of its physiology and its virulence. Nature Microbiology 2018, 16 : 32- 46