Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen which uses a number of strategies to cross epithelial and endothelial barriers at cell-cell junctions. In this review, we describe how the coordinated actions of P. aeruginosa's virulence factors trigger various molecular mechanisms to disarm the junctional gate responsible for tissue integrity.
Keywords: bacterial invasion; bacterial secretion systems; bacterial virulence factors; endothelium; epithelium; intercellular junctions.