Marco Metzger

Chair of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
University Hospital and Fraunhofer IGB – Unit Würzburg
D-97070 Würzburg

Tel.: 0931 31  86686
Fax: 0931 31 81068

Email: marco.metzger@uni-wuerzburg.de
Web: www.term.ukw.de

Research area:
Tissue Engineering, Vascularisation, Tissue models for infection studies

Primate-restricted Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) causes life-threatening typhoid fever while S. Typhimurium has a broad host-range and causes non-typhoidal intestinal infections and enteritis in humans. Both infect their hosts via the gastrointestinal route, exhibit a facultative intracellular life-style, and extensively manipulate host immune signaling. However, S. Typhi interactions with human host cells remain little understood due to the limited availability of primate infection models. Marco Metzger and Jörg Vogel have been establishing a 3D in vitro human infection model mimicking the gastrointestinal barrier, utilizing an acellularized matrix of porcine gut fixed in a cell-crown. S. Typhimurium applied to the apical compartment followed by flow cytometry yields robust infection of the epithelial cell layer and low-level transmission of the bacteria across the intestinal barrier. They now plan to use vascularized primary intestinal tissue models kept under dynamic culture conditions and will supplement the vascular compartment with purified human peripheral blood leukocytes to understand their role in dissemination of Salmonella. The ultimate goal is to challenge the human in vitro infection model with S. Typhi and use dual RNA-Seq to simultaneously resolve human and pathogen transcriptomic changes as the infection progresses.