Open Access

REVIEW

Coxiella burnetii: living inside the host cell

Jesus Sebastian DISTEL¹, Walter BERON¹, Rodolfo Matias ORTIZ FLORES^1,2

1 Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza (IHEM), CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
2 Facultad de Odontología, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

Address correspondence to: Rodolfo Matias Ortiz Flores,

BIOCELL 2019, 43(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2019.07021

Abstract

Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular pathogen and the causative agent of Q fever. In this brief review, we describe how recently described mechanisms help our understanding of C. burnetii invasion and its survival in the host cell by the formation of a replicative niche: the Coxiella-containing vacuole. We describe the actin-associated proteins involved in the internalization of C. burnetii, and we discuss the contribution of diverse degradation pathways of the cell during the formation and stabilization of the Coxiella-containing vacuole.

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Keywords

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