Shigella infection

Human intestinal cells infected with Shigella bacteria. The Shigella bacteria (shown in pink) invade the intestinal lining causing diarrhoea and rapid dehydration typical of bacterial dysentery. The bacteria infects the cells by high-jacking the cell's internal skeleton (shown in green) to facilitate its entry into the cell and spread into adjoining cells, as several can be seen doing here. FITC-labelled phalloidin highlights the actin of the cytoskeleton in green and propidium iodide (a DNA stain) was used to visualise bacteria in pink. Biomedical Image Awards 2006.