Coxiella burnetii, the agent of Q fever, persists in adipocytes

Coxiella burnetii, the agent of Q fever, persists in humans despite specific immune responses: however, its reservoir remains unknown. We detected C. burnetii in adipose tissue from BALB/c and C57/BL6 mice 4 months after infection when no bacteria were found in other tissues. C. burnetii infected cultivated adipocytes, replicated within late phagosomes and induced a transcriptional program that was enriched for the expression of genes associated with inflammatory response, hormonal responses and cytoskeleton. 3T3-L1 (ATCC) differentiated adipocytes were stimulated or not with Coxiella burnetii (NMI) at a ratio of 50 bacteria per cell. Four biological replicates were analyzed in each group. Due to technical reason, one unstimulated sample was discarded from the analysis.