Listeria monocytogenes is a model bacterial pathogen whose, after internalization, is
capable of disrupting a double-membrane vacuole, replicate in the host cytosol and
manipulate the innate response triggered in the cytosol. Its intracellular lifecycle in the
human host provides insight into the dynamics of general host-pathogen
interactions. The identification of host sequences affected during these interactions is
paramount to our understanding of how pathogens engineer their cellular
environments.
The main goal of this project is, therefore, to comprehend in which way pathogens are
influencing human host cells, by identifying global changes in the host transcriptome
and characterizing the alterations in host nuclear architecture. Furthermore, it is aimed
to associate these changes to different stages of the Listeria monocytogenes infection
lifecycle. For that, total RNA was extracted from three different cell populations at four
time-points (after 20, 60, 120 and 240 minutes) with the purpose of having represented
specific stages in the bacterium lifecycle.