Host Defense and the Airway Epithelium Frontline Responses That Protect against Bacterial Invasion and Pneumonia.pdfVIP

SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research Journal of Pathogens Volume 2011, Article ID 249802, 16 pages doi:10.4061/2011/249802 Review Article Host Defense and the Airway Epithelium: Frontline Responses That Protect against Bacterial Invasion and Pneumonia Nicholas A. Eisele1, 2, 3 and Deborah M. Anderson1, 3 1 Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA 2 Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA 3 The Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Deborah M. Anderson, andersondeb@ Received 16 April 2011; Revised 18 July 2011; Accepted 21 July 2011 Academic Editor: Micahel Borchers Copyright © 2011 N. A. Eisele and D. M. Anderson. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Airway epithelial cells are the first line of defense against invading microbes, and they protect themselves through the production of carbohydrate and protein matrices concentrated with antimicrobial products. In addition, they act as sentinels, expressing pattern recognition receptors that become activated upon sensing bacterial products and stimulate downstream recruitment and activation of immune cells which clear invading microbes. Bacterial pathogens that successfully colonize the lungs must resist these mechanisms or inhibit their production, penetrate the epithelial barrier, and be prepared to resist a barrage of inflammation. Despite the enormous task at hand, relatively few virulence factors coordinate the battle with the epithelium while sim