Are Caveolae involved in the uptake of Pathogenic Bacteria?
Many bacteria that infect vertebrates have adopted a strategy of evading the immune systems of their hosts by invading cells (see Bacterial Cell Invasion). The adhesion and uptake of bacteria is a complex business involving several bacterial proteins and a large number of host proteins (signalling and cytoskeletal proteins) hijacked by the bacteria. Nucleolin has been identified as a receptor for EHEC E.coli, (Sinclair & O’Brien, 2002) but it is not clear if nucleolin is associated with caveolae. Bacteria may be taken up via caveolae by a similar mechanism as that described for the SV40 virus (Pelkmans et al, 2002). Neuronal “Caveolae”. Whereas neuronal cells express caveolin-1 and caveolin-2, they do not produce morphologically recognisable caveolae. Instead, micro-domains enriched in caveolins in association with striatin and other associated proteins. Striatins are enriched in dendritic spines (Bartoli et al, 1998), in keeping with the widely held view that spines are regions enrich
