Since three decades, we are studying how Listeria interacts with mammalian cells and harness them during infection. Listeria is ubiquitous in the environment. It multiplies on decaying vegetation and can contaminate food products, thereby leading to gastroenteritis and also meningitis and abortions, with a mortality rate of 30%. The capacity of Listeria to produce an infection is due to its ability to cross three tight host body barriers: the intestinal barrier, the blood brain barrier, and the placental barrier.
Its virulence is due to an arsenal of virulence factors which allow Listeria to survive and persist in the intestinal lumen, to enter into cells and disseminate in the various tissues that it infects, exploiting cellular signaling pathways and components to its own profit in order to escape host defenses mechanism. We have used a combination of targeted and genome wide approaches including genomic and post genomic approaches, with cutting edge technologies e.g. fluorescence microscopy, live cell imaging, mass spectrometry. Our picture of the infection and also that of the switch from saprophitism to virulence are becoming more and more precise. During the talk, we will survey well established factors of the infectious process and discuss most recent findings.