Cytoplasmic bacteria and the autophagic pathway

Cytoplasmic bacteria may assist in our study of the autophagic pathway. This review highlights the use of Listeria monocytogenes for examining the assembly of autophagic vacuoles in mammalian cells. Inhibiting protein synthesis of cytoplasmic L. monocytogenes results in their being sequestered into the autophagic pathway. Autophagic vacuoles form around the easily identified bacterial particles making the assembly process easy to study using morphological and biochemical methods. L. monocytogenes, which appears to be ideally adapted to life in the cell cytoplasm, does not normally become a target of autophagy. In model systems the bacteria thrive within host cell cytoplasm, indicating the importance of de novo protein synthesis in avoiding the autophagic pathway. This observation indicates an interesting opportunity for identifying the bacterial mechanisms that are mobilized to avoid the autophagic pathway.