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Discovery of New Intracellular Pathogens by Amoebal Coculture and Amoebal Enrichment Approaches
Published on: October 28, 2013
Bacterial endosymbiosis in amoebae
1Dept of Zoology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Abstract:
The large, free-living amoebae are inherently phagocytic. They capture, ingest and digest microbes within their phagolysosomes, including those that survive in other cells. One exception is an unidentified strain of Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacteria that spontaneously infected the D strain of Amoeba proteus and came to survive inside them. These bacteria established a stable symbiotic relationship with amoebae that has resulted in phenotypic modulation of the host and mutual dependence for survival.
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