“…F. tularensis utilises a variety of strategies to modulate the innate immune response and its effectors, as exemplified by its ability to elicit severe illness at low inocula. This organism infects several cell types including macrophages and neutrophils, interferes with oxidative host defence mechanisms by disrupting reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase assembly and activity, escapes the phagosome to replicate in host cell cytosol, and produces an atypical lipopolysaccharide (LPS) that lacks endotoxic activity yet synergises with capsular polysaccharides for protection against complement‐mediated lysis (J. H. Barker, Weiss, Apicella, & Nauseef, ; Kinkead & Allen, ; Lindemann et al, ; McCaffrey & Allen, ; McLendon, Apicella, & Allen, ; Schulert et al, ). Moreover, we discovered that both Type A and Type B F. tularensis strains modulate the major apoptotic pathways of human neutrophils and significantly extend cell lifespan (McCracken, Kinkead, McCaffrey, & Allen, ; Schwartz et al, , ).…”