INTOX

Infectious diseases are among the most deadly pathologies of the 21st century. Strongly influencing the outcome of a given infection is the efficacy of the immune system at detecting and eliminating pathogens. To this regard, pathogens have developed a broad range of tactics to manipulate host cell functions. In response to this, inflammasomes, which are intracellular and pro-inflammatory complexes, have evolved to monitor for alterations of host cell functions, which constitutes an essential feature of the innate immune system. Human epithelial cells, which constitute the first cellular barrier to most of the microbial species, specifically express the NLRP1-inflammasome forming sensor. This suggests a yet to be determined epithelial-specific function for NLRP1 at combatting infections. In this context, relying on robust preliminary data and a very complemnetary consortium of microbiologists, biochemists and immunologists, we propose to adress and define the central role of human NLRP1 at detecting microbial factors that highjack the function of essential enzymes, namely the Rho GTPases.