“I became interested in Wake Forest after searching for a graduate program where I could learn the skills needed for ethical research and good science. Research diversity, friendly faculty, and an environment that would foster collaboration and creativity were important to me, and the program here has all of these things and more. The program has afforded me the opportunity to explore areas that I would not have been able to explore at the other schools I looked at, while Wake's generous research assistantship allows me to do research unencumbered by the responsibilities of a teaching assistantship.”

The Effects of Listeria monocytogenes Infection of Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells

Dendritic cells (DCs) are known as the bridge between innate and adaptive immunity.  As professional antigen presenting cells, DCs are capable of acquiring antigen, processing that antigen, and then presenting those peptides in the context of MHC class I or II molecules on its cell surface to T cells.  One subset of DCs, plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), are known as “professional” type I interferon producing cells, and have been shown to respond in vivo and in vitro to viruses and other TLR agonists by producing large amounts of IFN α/ β.  Our lab has previously shown that another DC subtype, myeloid DCs (mDCs), respond to infection with the G+, intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes in a Listeriolysin O– dependent manner.  Currently, our understanding is that pDCs and mDCs have differential responses to Listerial infection. Since little is known about the response and role of pDCs in a bacterial infection, we will begin to dissect the effects on pDCs following infection with L. monocytogenes with an emphasis on what pattern recognition receptors and signaling pathways are involved.