Research / Scientific departments / Cell Biology and Infection / Units and groups / Dynamics of Host-Pathogen Interactions

Group : Dynamics of Host-Pathogen Interactions

Group leader: Jost Enninga, Ph.D.

Our group “Dynamique des interactions hôte-pathogène” or “Dynamics of host pathogen-interactions” was created in January 2008. We are developing novel approaches to investigate the interactions between pathogens and their hosts in single cells in real time.

In particular, we are interested in deciphering the molecular and cellular basis  of how a number of bacterial pathogens, such as Shigella or Salmonella enter host cells during the infection process. To achieve this, we film these invasion events using innovative fluorescence microscopy. More specifically, we focus on the establishment of novel assays that allow us to monitor pathogen invasion; simultaneously tracking a large number of parameters involved in the invasion processes. In doing this we are able to correlate the pathogen behavior, its intracellular localization and the host responses it induces in single cells in real time.

We are convinced that deciphering the molecular and cellular details of the invasion strategies used by the bacterial pathogens will identify novel drug targets and will provide new insight into fundamental cell biological processes.

We have obtained generous funding for our research by the following agencies and institutions during recent years and for the coming years: the Institut Pasteur, the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR), the European Union (ERC program and Marie Curie program), the Fondation Schlumberger pour l'Education et la Recherche, the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), the French Foreign Ministry, EMBO and HFSPO. We would like to thank them for their support.

Our group

Jost ENNINGA                          - Principal investigator
Alexandre BOBARD                  - Postdoc
Cristina RODRIGUES               - Postdoc
Juliane LIPPMANN                   - Postdoc
Soudeh EHSANI                       - Ph D student
Nora MELLOUK                        - Ph D student
José VIEIRA dos SANTOS       - Scientific visitor
Ana Monica CORREIA              - Project manager
Marianne BURBAGE                 - Master student
Anne-Marie FARGUES              - Administrative assistant
Laurent AUDRY                         - Technician, webmaster

Selected recent publications

1.   Ray K., Bobard A., Danckaert A., Clair C., Ehsani S., Tang C., Sansonetti P., Tran Van Nhieu G., Enninga J. Tracking the dynamic interplay between bacterial and host factors during pathogen-induced vacuolar rupture in real time by fluorescence microscopy. Cellular Microbiology 2010. Apr 1;12(4):545-56.

2.   Simpson N., Audry L., and Enninga J. Tracking the secretion of fluorescently-labeled type III effectors from single bacteria in real time. Methods in Mol Biology, 2010. 2010;619:241-56.

3.   Ehsani S., Rodrigues D.C., Enninga J. Turning on the spotlight - Using light to monitor and characterize bacterial effector secretion and translocation. 2009. Curr Op in Microbiol. 2009 Feb;12(1):24-30.

If you like to obtain more information on what we are doing, follow the link :

If you like to contact us, please write to or call our administrative assistant

Anne-Marie FARGUES

Email:         anne-marie.fargues@pasteur.fr 
Phone:        01-45-68-84-46
Fax:            01-40-61-35-83

Our address is :

Groupe “Dynamique des interactions hôte-pathogène”
Institut Pasteur
25, rue du Dr. Roux
75724 Paris
France