Park Hae-Sun, Francis Kevin P, Yu Jun, Cleary P Patrick
Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota Medical School, 420 Delaware Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
J Immunol. 2003 Sep 1;171(5):2532-7. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.171.5.2532.
Human tonsils are suspected to be an antibiotic-impervious human reservoir for group A streptococcus. An intranasal infection model in mice and a bioluminescent-tagged strain were used to investigate this possibility. Viable streptococci were predominantly found both intra- and extracellularly in nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT), a human tonsil homologue. Ulex europaeus-1, a membranous (M) cell-specific lectin, identified cells harboring streptococci at the epithelial surface of NALT and blocked bacterial colonization of this tissue. These results suggest that M cells in NALT transport this Gram-positive pathogen across the epithelial layers in a manner similar to those in Peyer's patches, which permit enteric pathogens to invade deeper tissues from the gastrointestinal tract.
人类扁桃体被怀疑是A组链球菌的一个抗生素无法渗透的人类储存库。利用小鼠鼻内感染模型和生物发光标记菌株来研究这种可能性。在鼻相关淋巴组织（NALT，一种人类扁桃体同源物）中，活的链球菌主要存在于细胞内和细胞外。欧洲荆豆凝集素-1（Ulex europaeus-1），一种膜（M）细胞特异性凝集素，可识别NALT上皮表面携带链球菌的细胞，并阻止该组织的细菌定植。这些结果表明，NALT中的M细胞以类似于派尔集合淋巴结中的M细胞的方式，将这种革兰氏阳性病原体转运穿过上皮层，而派尔集合淋巴结中的M细胞可使肠道病原体从胃肠道侵入更深层组织。
