A 'fly-by' killing with a primordial cellular weapon

Role of autophagy and autophagy genes in inflammatory bowel disease

Polymorphisms associated with two genes in the autophagy pathway, ATG16L1 and IRGM1, have been implicated in susceptibility to Crohn's disease, an idiopathic inflammatory disease typically involving the gastrointestinal tract. The intestinal mucosa is a site of careful immune regulation where the epithelium and immune cells encounter pathogens as well as a robust and diverse population of indigenous microbes that are predominately bacteria. Since the role of autophagy in immunity is broad and expanding, it is unclear which downstream functions of autophagy and which cell types are the key factors in Crohn's disease susceptibility. This chapter reviews the recent literature on the roles of ATG16L1 and IRGM1 in the autophagy pathway, inflammation, antimicrobial immunity, and the biology of the intestine, and discusses how these genes may contribute to Crohn's disease pathogenesis.

Beta1 integrin-dependent engulfment of Yersinia enterocolitica by macrophages is coupled to the activation of autophagy and suppressed by type III protein secretion

Autophagy is a central lysosomal degradation process that is essential for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Autophagy has furthermore emerged as integral part of the host immune response. Autophagic processes promote the separation and degradation of intracellular microorganisms which contributes to the development of innate and adaptive immunity. Some pathogenic microbes have therefore evolved mechanisms to evade or impede autophagy. We analyzed the effects of the enteropathogenic bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica on autophagy in macrophages. Yersiniae use a number of defined adhesins and secreted proteins to manipulate host immune responses. Our results showed that Y. enterocolitica defective in type III protein secretion efficiently activated autophagy in macrophages. Autophagy was mediated by the Yersinia adhesins invasin and YadA and particularly depended on the engagement of beta(1) integrin receptors. Several autophagy-related events followed beta(1) integrin-mediated engulfment of the bacteria including the formation of autophagosomes, processing of the marker protein LC3, redistribution of GFP-LC3 to bacteria-containing vacuoles, and the segregation of intracellular bacteria by autophagosomal compartments. These results provide direct evidence for the linkage of beta(1) integrin-mediated phagocytosis and autophagy induction. Multiple microbes signal through integrin receptors, and our results suggest a general principle by which the sensing of an extracellular microbe triggers autophagy. Owing to the importance of autophagy as host defense response, wild-type Y. enterocolitica suppressed autophagy by mobilizing type III protein secretion. The subversion of autophagy may be part of the Y. enterocolitica virulence strategy that supports bacterial survival when beta(1) integrin-dependent internalization and autophagy activation by macrophages are deleterious for the pathogen.

Autophagy in immunity against mycobacterium tuberculosis: a model system to dissect immunological roles of autophagy

The recognition of autophagy as an immune mechanism has been affirmed in recent years. One of the model systems that has helped in the development of our current understanding of how autophagy and more traditional immunity systems cooperate in defense against intracellular pathogens is macrophage infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. M. tuberculosis is a highly significant human pathogen that latently infects billions of people and causes active disease in millions of patients worldwide. The ability of the tubercle bacillus to persist in human populations rests upon its macrophage parasitism. One of the initial reports on the ability of autophagy to act as a cell-autonomous innate immunity mechanism capable of eliminating intracellular bacteria was on M. tuberculosis. This model system has further contributed to the recognition of multiple connections between conventional immune regulators and autophagy. In this chapter, we will review how these studies have helped to establish the following principles: (1) autophagy functions as an innate defense mechanism against intracellular microbes; (2) autophagy is under the control of pattern recognition receptors (PRR) such as Toll-like receptors (TLR), and it acts as one of the immunological output effectors of PRR and TLR signaling; (3) autophagy is one of the effector functions associated with the immunity-regulated GTPases, which were initially characterized as molecules involved in cell-autonomous defense, but whose mechanism of function was unknown until recently; (4) autophagy is an immune effector of Th1/Th2 T cell response polarization-autophagy is activated by Th1 cytokines (which act in defense against intracellular pathogens) and is inhibited by Th2 cytokines (which make cells accessible to intracellular pathogens). Collectively, the studies employing the M. tuberculosis autophagy model system have contributed to the development of a more comprehensive view of autophagy as an immunological process. This work and related studies by others have led us to propose a model of how autophagy, an ancient innate immunity defense, became integrated over the course of evolution with other immune mechanisms of ever-increasing complexity.