How Listeria spread to different organs inside the body
Intracellular pathogens like Listeria exploit macrophages to cross endothelial barriers and spread systemically but the transmigration mechanism is not well understood.
The researchers show that exposure to infected macrophages weakens contractile forces within the endothelial monolayer and decreases the barrier function thus enabling macrophage transmigration.
They also demonstrate that this response is driven by direct cell-cell interactions, with cytokines exerting only minor and transient effects.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(26)00109-9
