“…Coupled with its propensity to invade cultured epithelial cells, this makes it an extremely valuable tool for studying invasion and intracellular survival and has enabled the identi®cation and characterization of many of the factors involved (Finlay and Falkow, 1990;Francis et al, 1992;Galan et al, 1992;Ginocchio et al, 1992;1994;Garcia-del Portillo et al, 1993a;1995;Stein et al, 1996;Hardt et al, 1998). Initial contact of Salmonella with an epithelial cell induces host cell signal transduction cascades and extensive cytoskeletal rearrangements, which lead to the formation of membrane ruf¯es on the cell surface (Finlay et al, 1991;Ruschkowski et al, 1992;Francis et al, 1993;Pace et al, 1993). Ruf¯e formation is mediated by a host cellular pathway that is dependent on the small GTP-binding protein CDC42 and a bacterially encoded Rho GTPase activator, and results in the internalization of bacteria into a unique membrane-bound vacuole (Finlay and Falkow, 1990;Garciadel Portillo et al, 1994;Chen et al, 1996;Hardt et al, 1998).…”