Swanson Michele S
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
J Immunol. 2006 Oct 15;177(8):4945-51. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.177.8.4945.
A renaissance in the autophagy field has illuminated many areas of biology, and infectious disease is no exception. By identifying key components of this broadly conserved membrane traffic pathway, yeast geneticists generated tools for microbiologists and immunologists to explore whether autophagy contributes to host defenses. As a result, autophagy is now recognized to be another barrier confronted by microbes that invade eukaryotic cells. Mounting evidence also indicates that autophagy equips cells to deliver cytosolic Ags to the MHC class II pathway. By applying knowledge of the autophagy machinery and exploiting microbes as genetic probes, experimentalists can now examine in detail how this ancient membrane traffic pathway contributes to these and other mechanisms critical for infection and immunity.
自噬领域的复兴照亮了生物学的许多领域，传染病也不例外。通过确定这一广泛保守的膜运输途径的关键组成部分，酵母遗传学家为微生物学家和免疫学家开发了工具，以探索自噬是否有助于宿主防御。因此，自噬现在被认为是入侵真核细胞的微生物所面临的另一道屏障。越来越多的证据还表明，自噬使细胞能够将胞质抗原递送至MHC II类途径。通过应用自噬机制的知识并利用微生物作为遗传探针，实验人员现在可以详细研究这一古老的膜运输途径如何促成这些以及其他对感染和免疫至关重要的机制。
