Francisella tularensis is a Gram-negative bacterium and the causative agent of tularemia. Recent data indicate that F. tularensis replicates inside macrophages, but its fate in other cell types, including human neutrophils, is unclear. We now show that F. tularensis live vaccine strain (LVS), opsonized with normal human serum, was rapidly ingested by neutrophils but was not eliminated. Moreover, evasion of intracellular killing can be explained, in part, by disruption of the respiratory burst. As judged by luminol-enhanced chemiluminescence and nitroblue tetrazolium staining, neutrophils infected with live F. tularensis did not generate reactive oxygen species. Confocal microscopy demonstrated that NADPH oxidase assembly was disrupted, and LVS phagosomes did not acquire gp91/p22 phox or p47/p67 phox . At the same time, F. tularensis also impaired neutrophil activation by heterologous stimuli such as phorbol esters and opsonized zymosan particles. Later in infection, LVS escaped the phagosome, and live organisms persisted in the neutrophil cytosol for at least 12 h. To our knowledge, our data are the first demonstration of a facultative intracellular pathogen, which disrupts the oxidative burst and escapes the phagosome to evade elimination inside neutrophils, and as such, our data define a novel mechanism of virulence.

Ft is a facultative intracellular pathogen that infects many cell types, including neutrophils. In previous work, we demonstrated that the type B Ft strain LVS disrupts NADPH oxidase activity throughout human neutrophils, but how this is achieved is incompletely defined. Here, we used several type A and type B strains to demonstrate that Ft-mediated NADPH oxidase inhibition is more complex than appreciated previously. We confirm that phagosomes containing Ft opsonized with AS exclude flavocytochrome b(558) and extend previous results to show that soluble phox proteins were also affected, as indicated by diminished phosphorylation of p47(phox) and other PKC substrates. However, a different mechanism accounts for the ability of Ft to inhibit neutrophil activation by formyl peptides, Staphylococcus aureus, OpZ, and phorbol esters. In this case, enzyme targeting and assembly were normal, and impaired superoxide production was characterized by sustained membrane accumulation of dysfunctional NADPH oxidase complexes. A similar post-assembly inhibition mechanism also diminished the ability of anti-Ft IS to confer neutrophil activation and bacterial killing, consistent with the limited role for antibodies in host defense during tularemia. Studies of mutants that we generated in the type A Ft strain Schu S4 demonstrate that the regulatory factor fevR is essential for NADPH oxidase inhibition, whereas iglI and iglJ, candidate secretion system effectors, and the acid phosphatase acpA are not. As Ft uses multiple mechanisms to block neutrophil NADPH oxidase activity, our data strongly suggest that this is a central aspect of virulence.

Innate and adaptive immunity depends critically on host recognition of pathogen-associated molecules. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are key mediators of pathogen surveillance at the cell or phagocytic vacuole surface. However, mechanisms underlying recognition of pathogens in other cellular compartments remain unclear, and responses elicited by cytosolic challenge are poorly characterized. We therefore used mouse cDNA microarrays to investigate gene expression triggered by infection of bone marrow-derived macrophages with cytosol-and vacuole-localized Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), a model cytosolic pathogen. The resulting gene expression program included two basic categories of induced genes: an ''early͞persistent'' cluster consistent with NF-B-dependent responses downstream of TLRs, and a subsequent ''late response'' cluster largely composed of IFN-responsive genes (IRGs). The early͞persistent cluster was observed upon infection with WT, heat-killed, or mutant Lm lacking listeriolysin O, the pore-forming hemolysin that promotes escape from phagocytic vacuoles. However, the IRG cluster depended on entry of WT Lm into the cytosol. Infection with listeriolysin O-expressing, cytosolic Bacillus subtilis (Bs) strikingly recapitulated the expression profile associated with WT Lm, including IRG induction. IRG up-regulation was associated with MyD88-independent induction of IFN-␤ transcription and activity. Whereas Staphylococcus aureus (Sa) lipoteichoic acid treatment confirmed that many late-response genes could also be stimulated through TLRs, our study identified a cytosol-specific transcriptional program independent of TLR signaling through MyD88. Further characterization of cytosolic surveillance pathway(s) and their points of convergence with TLR-and IFN-dependent pathways will enhance our understanding of the means by which mammals detect and respond to pathogens.