Pathogen recognition by taste and odorant receptors and coupling to BALT formation and epithelial remodeling (A06)

• Subject Area: Clinical Infectiology and Tropical Medicine
• Term: from 2014 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 114933180

Specialized chemosensory epithelial cells utilize the canonical taste transduction cascade to recognize bacterial products at the mucosal surface and acutely activate mucociliary clearance through paracrine cholinergic signaling. We will now test our major hypothesis that chemosensory cells (brush and neuroendocrine cells) orchestrate (1) BALT (tertiary lymphoid follicles) formation and (2) infection-induced epithelial remodeling, both via (a) intraepithelial paracrine signaling and (b) modifying innate lymphoid cell (ILC) functions, thereby protecting from or limiting pulmonary infection, utilizing the newly identified murine pathogen B. pseudohinzii as a model organism, and the human pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 84: Innate Immunity of the Lung: Mechanisms of Pathogen Attack and Host Defence in Pneumonia
• Applicant Institution: shared FU Berlin and HU Berlin through:; Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Andreas Diefenbach, since 7/2018; Professorin Dr. Gabriela Krasteva-Christ, until 2/2015; Professor Dr. Wolfgang Kummer