细菌在气道中牢固附着

Pathogenic Bordetella avoid clearance from airways by hanging on to microtubules of ciliated cells Françoise Jacob-Dubuisson Pathogenic bacteria belonging to the genus Bordetella infect the upper airways of various mammals and birds and include the whooping cough agent Bordetella pertussis. Bacteria bear proteins on their surface called adhesins that attach to a substratum, other bacteria, or eukaryotic cells. Bordetella express filamentous hemagglutinin (FhaB), an adhesin with a distinct tropism for ciliated epithelial cells that line the respiratory tract. On page 825 of this issue, Costello et al. (1) report that FhaB inserts its C-terminal domain into the cilia of epithelial cells. This allows the domain to latch on to microtubules, the cytoskeletal core of cilia. …