Heat shock cognate protein 70 contributes to Brucella invasion into trophoblast giant cells that cause infectious abortion

doi:10.1186/1471-2180-8-212

BMC Microbiology
Volume 8

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Watanabe K
Tachibana M
Tanaka S
Furuoka H
Horiuchi M
Suzuki H
Watarai M

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Tachibana M
Tanaka S
Furuoka H
Horiuchi M
Suzuki H
Watarai M
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Research article

Heat shock cognate protein 70 contributes to Brucella invasion into trophoblast giant cells that cause infectious abortion

Kenta Watanabe¹^,2 , Masato Tachibana¹^,2 , Satoshi Tanaka³ , Hidefumi Furuoka⁴ , Motohiro Horiuchi⁵ , Hiroshi Suzuki²^,6 and Masahisa Watarai¹

¹Department of Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi, Japan

²Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Japan

³Department of Animal Resource Science and Veterinary Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

⁴Department of Veterinary Medical Science, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Japan

⁵Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

⁶Department of Development and Medical Technology, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

author email corresponding author email

BMC Microbiology 2008, 8:212doi:10.1186/1471-2180-8-212


Published:	5 December 2008

Abstract

Background

The cell tropism of Brucella abortus, a causative agent of brucellosis and facultative intracellular pathogen, in the placenta is thought to be a key event of infectious abortion, although the molecular mechanism for this is largely unknown. There is a higher degree of bacterial colonization in the placenta than in other organs and many bacteria are detected in trophoblast giant (TG) cells in the placenta. In the present study, we investigated mechanism of B. abortus invasion into TG cells.

Results

We observed internalization and intracellular growth of B. abortus in cultured TG cells. A monoclonal antibody that inhibits bacterial internalization was isolated and this reacted with heat shock cognate protein 70 (Hsc70). Depletion and over expression of Hsc70 in TG cells inhibited and promoted bacterial internalization, respectively. IFN-γ receptor was expressed in TG cells and IFN-γ treatment enhanced the uptake of bacteria by TG cells. Administering the anti-Hsc70 antibody to pregnant mice served to prevent infectious abortion.

Conclusion

B. abortus infection of TG cells in placenta is mediated by Hsc70, and that such infection leads to infectious abortion.