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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Imaging InlC Secretion to Investigate Cellular Infection by the Bacterial Pathogen Listeria monocytogenes
Published on: September 19, 2013
Phospholipases C and the pathogenesis of Listeria
D A Portnoy1, G A Smith, H Goldfine
1Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia 19104-6076.
Abstract:
Listeria monocytogenes is a model intracellular pathogen which escapes from a host cell vacuole, grows intracytoplasmically, and spreads cell to cell without an extracellular phase. A number of genes necessary for pathogenicity have been discovered, two of which encode phospholipases C, a PI-PLC and a broad-range PLC. Single and double mutants were constructed with in-frame deletions in one or both PLCs. Characterization of the strains indicated that the two PLCs may have overlapping function as the double mutant was 500-fold less virulent while the single mutants had a negligible effect on virulence. The role of the PLCs appears to be multifactorial as PI-PLC has a role in escaping from the initial host vacuole and the broad-range PLC appears to have a role in cell to cell spreading.
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