Section: Research

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John Leong, Ph.D.,M.D.

Research Description

Host-bacterium interactions that promote disease and its resolution.

In causing disease, bacterial pathogens establish an infectious niche and generate damage within the mammalian host. We investigate three bacterial pathogens to understand the host-microbe interactions that promote colonization and disease, and then, during resolution of infection, mediate microbial clearance. Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a food-borne intestinal pathogen that that inject into intestinal epithelial cells proteins that stimulate actin polymerization directly beneath bound bacteria. We are studying the action of these proteins to understand how interactions between these bacteria and the intestinal epithelium promote colonization and disease, as well as to gain insight into fundamental mechanisms of actin assembly in mammalian cells. Streptococcus pneumoniae, an important cause of lung infection, and pathogenic spirochetes, such as the Lyme disease spirochete Borreliae burgdorferi, each can establish a localized infection but are also capable of spreading throughout the host.  In a variety of studies, including some in collaboration with Dr. Beth McCormick, we investigate the microbe-host cell interactions that promote tissue invasion and systemic spread. In collaboration with Dr. Rachel Gerstein, we analyze components of the host immune response that contribute to immune protection and bacterial clearance.

Office: S6-214
Phone: 508-856-4059
E-mail: John.Leong@umassmed.edu
Keywords: Microbial Pathogenesis, Organisms - vertebrate/human cell lines, Cytoskeleton, Infectious Disease, Organisms - microbes

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