Figures
Listeria monocytogenes infection of the human placenta.
L. monocytogenes causes abortions and preterm labor. Robbins et al. (see doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000732) used first trimester human placental organ cultures to quantitatively analyze how L. monocytogenes breaches the maternal-fetal barrier. The syncytiotrophoblast (red), which constitutes most of the placental surface and is bathed in maternal blood in vivo, is highly resistant to L. monocytogenes infection. Instead, extravillous cytotrophoblasts, which anchor the placenta in the uterus, serve as the primary portal of entry for L. monocytogenes (green). Nuclei are blue.
Image Credit: Jennifer R. Robbins and Anna I. Bakardjiev, University of California, San Francisco
Citation: (2010) PLoS Pathogens Issue Image | Vol. 6(1) January 2010. PLoS Pathog 6(1): ev06.i01. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.ppat.v06.i01
Published: January 29, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Robbins, Bakardjiev. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
L. monocytogenes causes abortions and preterm labor. Robbins et al. (see doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000732) used first trimester human placental organ cultures to quantitatively analyze how L. monocytogenes breaches the maternal-fetal barrier. The syncytiotrophoblast (red), which constitutes most of the placental surface and is bathed in maternal blood in vivo, is highly resistant to L. monocytogenes infection. Instead, extravillous cytotrophoblasts, which anchor the placenta in the uterus, serve as the primary portal of entry for L. monocytogenes (green). Nuclei are blue.
Image Credit: Jennifer R. Robbins and Anna I. Bakardjiev, University of California, San Francisco