Macrophages Infected by a Pathogen and a Non-pathogen Spotted Fever Group Rickettsia Reveal Differential Reprogramming Signatures Early in Infection

Discussion The ability of many microbial and viral pathogens to modulate host transcriptional responses is a central aspect for pathogenesis (Tran Van Nhieu and Arbibe, 2009; Ashida and Sasakawa, 2014; Lateef et al., 2017). Consequently, the study of host transcriptomic alterations promoted during infection is a useful source of information to understand how pathogens can establish a successful niche inside host cells (Cloney, 2016). The employment of high-throughput sequencing-based transcriptomic technologies has endorsed significant advances in unraveling host-pathogen interactions that contribute for cellular tropism and pathogenicity (Westermann et al., 2012, 2017; Saliba et al., 2017). We have previously shown that R. conorii and R. montanensis, two SFG Rickettsia with different degrees of pathogenicity to humans, display opposite intracellular fates in THP-1 macrophages (Curto et al., 2016). To further understand this phenotypic difference, we herein characterized the early changes in host gene expression in these cells upon challenge with the two SFG Rickettsia. This experimental design allowed us to determine not only the host transcriptomic responses induced to clear infection by an avirulent Rickettsia but also R. conorii-specific alterations that are initiated at a very early time point (1 h) post-infection in THP-1 cells. Our results revealed that infection with the pathogenic species was able to specifically promote a robust set of alterations in host gene exp...
Source: Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research