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Updated: Aug 20, 2026

Long Term Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa Airway Infection in Mice
Published on: March 17, 2014
The evolution of chronic infection strategies in the alpha-proteobacteria
Jacques Batut1, Siv G E Andersson, David O'Callaghan
1Laboratory of Plant Microbe Interactions, CNRS-INRA, BP27, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France.
Abstract:
Many of the alpha-proteobacteria establish long-term, often chronic, interactions with higher eukaryotes. These interactions range from pericellular colonization through facultative intracellular multiplication to obligate intracellular lifestyles. A common feature in this wide range of interactions is modulation of host-cell proliferation, which sometimes leads to the formation of tumour-like structures in which the bacteria can grow. Comparative genome analyses reveal genome reduction by gene loss in the intracellular alpha-proteobacterial lineages, and genome expansion by gene duplication and horizontal gene transfer in the free-living species. In this review, we discuss alpha-proteobacterial genome evolution and highlight strategies and mechanisms used by these bacteria to infect and multiply in eukaryotic cells.
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