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Migration of Acanthamoeba castellanii Through Legionella Biofilms.
Journal article

Migration of Acanthamoeba castellanii Through Legionella Biofilms.

  • Hochstrasser R Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
  • Hilbi H Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland. hilbi@imm.uzh.ch.
  • 2019-01-30
Published in:
  • Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). - 2019
Acanthamoeba castellanii
Biofilm formation
Cell motility
Confocal microscopy
Green fluorescent protein
Host-pathogen interactions
Legionella pneumophila
Single-cell tracking
Type IV secretion
Acanthamoeba castellanii
Biofilms
Host-Pathogen Interactions
Humans
Legionella
Legionella pneumophila
Locomotion
Microscopy, Confocal
English The amoeba-resistant bacterium Legionella pneumophila infects humans through aerosols and thereby can cause a life-threatening pneumonia termed Legionnaires' disease. In the environment L. pneumophila forms and colonizes biofilms, which usually comprise complex multispecies communities. In these biofilms L. pneumophila persists and replicates intracellularly in protozoa, such as the amoeba Acanthamoeba castellanii. The interactions between sessile L. pneumophila in biofilms and their natural protozoan hosts are not understood on a molecular level. Here, we describe a method to visualize by confocal microscopy the formation and architecture of mono-species L. pneumophila biofilms. Furthermore, we describe and quantify the migration or "grazing" of A. castellanii in the biofilm. This allows investigating on a molecular and cellular level L. pneumophila biofilm formation and Legionella-amoeba interactions within biofilms.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/88440
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