Salmonella enterica is an intracellular bacterial pathogen that resides and proliferates within a membrane-bound vacuole in epithelial cells of the gut and gallbladder. Although essential to disease, how Salmonella escapes from its intracellular niche and spreads to secondary cells within the same host, or to a new host, is not known. Here, we demonstrate that a subpopulation of Salmonella hyperreplicating in the cytosol of epithelial cells serves as a reservoir for dissemination. These bacteria are transcriptionally distinct from intravacuolar Salmonella. They are induced for the invasion-associated type III secretion system and possess flagella; hence, they are primed for invasion. Epithelial cells laden with these cytosolic bacteria are extruded out of the monolayer, releasing invasion-primed and -competent Salmonella into the lumen. This extrusion mechanism is morphologically similar to the process of cell shedding required for turnover of the intestinal epithelium. In contrast to the homeostatic mechanism, however, bacterial-induced extrusion is accompanied by an inflammatory cell death characterized by caspase-1 activation and the apical release of IL-18, an important cytokine regulator of gut inflammation. Although epithelial extrusion is obviously beneficial to Salmonella for completion of its life cycle, it also provides a mechanistic explanation for the mucosal inflammation that is triggered during Salmonella infection of the gastrointestinal and biliary tracts.

Summary Autophagy is a cellular degradation process that can capture and eliminate intracellular microbes by delivering them to lysosomes for destruction. However, pathogens have evolved mechanisms to subvert this process. The intracellular bacteria Brucella abortus ensures its survival by forming the Brucella-containing vacuole (BCV) that traffics from the endocytic compartment to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where the bacterium proliferates. We show that Brucella replication in the ER is followed by BCV conversion into a compartment with autophagic features (aBCV). While Brucella trafficking to the ER was unaffected in autophagy-deficient cells, aBCV formation required the autophagy initiation proteins ULK1, Beclin 1 and ATG14L, and PI3-kinase activity. However, aBCV formation was independent of the autophagy elongation proteins ATG5, ATG16L1, ATG4B, ATG7 and LC3B. Furthermore, aBCVs were required to complete the intracellular Brucella lifecycle and for cell-to-cell spreading, demonstrating that Brucella selectively co-opts autophagy initiation complexes to subvert host clearance and promote infection.

Replication of all positive-strand RNA viruses is intimately associated with membranes. Here we utilize electron tomography and other methods to investigate the remodeling of membranes in poliovirus-infected cells. We found that the viral replication structures previously described as "vesicles" are in fact convoluted, branching chambers with complex and dynamic morphology. They are likely to originate from cis-Golgi membranes and are represented during the early stages of infection by singlewalled connecting and branching tubular compartments. These early viral organelles gradually transform into doublemembrane structures by extension of membranous walls and/or collapsing of the luminal cavity of the single-membrane structures. As the double-membrane regions develop, they enclose cytoplasmic material. At this stage, a continuous membranous structure may have double-and single-walled membrane morphology at adjacent cross-sections. In the late stages of the replication cycle, the structures are represented mostly by double-membrane vesicles. Viral replication proteins, doublestranded RNA species, and actively replicating RNA are associated with both double-and single-membrane structures. However, the exponential phase of viral RNA synthesis occurs when single-membrane formations are predominant in the cell. It has been shown previously that replication complexes of some other positive-strand RNA viruses form on membrane invaginations, which result from negative membrane curvature. Our data show that the remodeling of cellular membranes in poliovirusinfected cells produces structures with positive curvature of membranes. Thus, it is likely that there is a fundamental divergence in the requirements for the supporting cellular membrane-shaping machinery among different groups of positive-strand RNA viruses.