Bacterial and Vesicular Interactions with Host Innate Immunity
Bacteria must sense and respond to their environment in order to adapt to the ever-changing environment. We are interested in one mechanism allowing bacteria to respond to host immune-mediated stress conditions via export of defined protein, lipid and nucleic acid laden extracellular membrane-derived vesicles (MVs). MVs act in multiple ways to exert a decisive impact on host-pathogen interactions during infection by pathogenic bacteria. We employ an array of molecular and cellular techniques to understand the formation of MVs and their roles during infection and immunity to fully comprehend the impact of MVs on bacterial virulence and the host immune response and to possibly harness the identified mechanisms into potentially novel anti-infective principles.