Intracellular Parasite - Nutrition

Nutrition

The majority of Intracellular parasites must keep host cells alive as long as possible while they are reproducing and growing. In order to grow they need nutrients that might be scarce in their free form in the cell. To study the mechanism that intracellular parasites use to obtain nutrients Legionella pneumophila, a facultative intracellular parasite, has been used as a model. Thus we know that Legionella pneumophila obtains nutrients by promoting host proteasomal degradation. Self-degradation of host proteins into amino acids provides the parasite the primary carbon and energy source.

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