ABSTRACT
Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive, opportunistic intracellular bacterium that can cause serious diseases (e.g., meningitis and death) in immunocompromised hosts, pregnant women, and neonates.1-3 During the course of its infection, L. monocytogenes employs a collection of purposefully made molecules that facilitate its efcient adhesion and entry to host cells, escape from vacuoles, replication in the cytoplasm, and spread to neighboring cells-provoking a cascade of innate and adaptive immune reactions in its wake without being completely eliminated by the host. The host responses to L. monocytogenes have been investigated extensively during the past 50 years and have contributed to the understanding of the key concepts in innate and adaptive immunity. Indeed, the L. monocytogenes infection model is considered indisputably a paradigm for the study of cellmediated immunity4-6 (see chapter 14).
