Yersinia signals macrophages to undergo apoptosis and YopJ is necessary for this cell death

摘要

Pathogenic Yersinia spp. carry a large com- mon plasmid that encodes a number of essential virulence determinants. Included in these factors are the Yersinia- secreted proteins called Yops. We analyzed the consequences of wild-type and mutant strains of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis interactions with the macrophage cell line RAW264.7 and murine bone marrow-derived macrophages. Wild-type Y. pseudotuberculosis kills ≈70/100 of infected RAW264.7 macro- phages and marrow-derived macrophages after an 8-h infec- tion. We show that the cell death mediated by Y. pseudotuber- culosis is apoptosis. Mutant Y. pseudotuberculosis that do not make any Yop proteins no longer cause host cell death.