Richard Ferraro
Deputy Centre Head, Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases
Research Group Head, Gastrointestinal Infection and Inflammation, Hudson Institute of Medical Research , Australia
Research Group Head, Gastrointestinal Infection and Inflammation, Hudson Institute of Medical Research , Australia
Richard Ferraro is a Deputy Centre Head and Research Group Leader at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and hold adjunct Professorial positions at Monash University. After completing his PhD at the University of NSW, in 1990, he took up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institut Pasteur, Paris. In 1994, he was appointed to a tenured researcher position at the institute, where he subsequently developed an independent research group. In 2004, he returned to Australia to firstly take up a research/teaching academic position in the Department of Microbiology (Monash University) and then, in 2009, was recruited to his current position. His main research interests span the fields of Helicobacter pylori, bacterial membrane vesicles, NOD-like receptor proteins, and innate immunology. His research has translated to important outcomes in the areas of H. pylori pathogenesis, vaccine development and innate immunology. This research has been published in leading journals i.e. Cell Host Microb., Gastroenterol., Immunity, Nat Rev Immunol., Nat Immunol. and PNAS. He hold positions on the Editorial Board of Helicobacter, the International Scientific Committee of “The International Workshop on Pathogenesis in Helicobacter infections”, and abstract review panels for major international conferences in the fields of gastroenterology and H. pylori research.
Bacterial extracellular vesicles transport bioactive products into host cells
Extracellular vesicle (EV) formation is an evolutionarily conserved trait amongst members of all three domains of living organisms. EVs contain a diverse array of biologically active compounds and play a key role in cell-to-cell communication. The EVs released by bacteria (BEVs) contain biologically active products, such as proteins, cell wall components and toxins. Bacteria use BEVs as a means of delivering such factors into eukaryotic host cells, resulting in various biological responses in these cells. Although BEVs are highly effective at entering simple non-polarized cell monolayers, it is not known whether these nano-sized vesicles can penetrate an intact epithelial barrier and, potentially, disseminate their protein cargo to tissues. We have addressed this question using a cell culture model that reproduces the transepithelial resistance and apical-basolateral polarity of normal epithelium. We showed that Helicobacter pylori BEVs readily entered polarized epithelial cells but had no effect on the transepithelial resistance nor permeability of these monolayers. OMVs induced the basolateral secretion of the neutrophil chemoattractant, interleukin-8 (IL-8), and expression of human leukocyte antigen class I and II molecules. In exosomes isolated from the basolateral compartment of BEV-stimulated cells, we identified peptides derived from eight H. pylori proteins, of which seven are surface- or membrane-associated and are known to localize within BEVs. Collectively, the data show that BEVs can enter polarized epithelial cells and deliver their protein cargo to exosomes. We propose that these exosomes may directly or indirectly present antigen to immune cells and even transport bacterial proteins to other tissue sites.
