About this Research Topic

Background

Infectious diseases are still leading cause of mortality around the world. Of particular importance in this regard are the intracellular pathogens, which dwell inside the host and manipulate host’s machinery for their growth. These include pathogens like Brucella abortus, Listeria monocytogenes, Chlamydia trachomatis, Coxiella burnetii, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Salmonella enterica, etc. These pathogens have evolved multiple mechanisms to survive in intracellular niche. The host in turn tries to reprogram its activities to combat their growth. This host-pathogen co-evolution warrants detailed study to probe the ever-changing virulence repertoire of the pathogen, that can be used for pathogen targeting.

Through this topic, we would like to explore the lesser explored area of host pathogen interactions. Studying host-pathogen crosstalk at their interface will help us in understanding this complex biology and might prove beneficial in development of new therapeutic targets. Understanding the holistics of host-pathogen interaction, will pave way for development of host-directed therapies.

On behalf of the Frontiers in Microbiology journal, you are cordially invited to contribute with an article to this Research Topic “Host-pathogen crosstalk: implications in host cellular processes by intracellular pathogens”. In this topic, we invite studies investigating changes in host cellular processes after being inflicted by intracellular pathogens. We invite researchers to contribute original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, or brief research reports. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

1. Molecular biology of infectious diseases including perturbation of host immune response, metabolic processes, redox changes, interference with cellular processes like autophagy, DNA repair, RNA splicing, transcriptional regulation.
2. Novel reports on relatively unexplored areas of disease transmission and how it is affected by an interplay of different factors associated with host, pathogen, and its environment.
3. The role of novel bacterial factors that help in their intracellular survival.
4. System level studies on the host cells or model organisms post infliction by the pathogen.
5. Functional genomics and epigenetic changes in the host as well as the pathogen.
6. Introduction of novel therapeutic approaches which improves our understanding about different aspects of host-pathogen interaction.

Keywords: Host-pathogen interaction, intracellular pathogens, infections, genomics, epigenetics, metabolomics, virulence

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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