Bacterial pathogens interact with various host cell components to establish
and develop an infectious process. Soma bacteria are able to invade cells
that are normally nonphagocytic, to multiply freely within the cell cytosol
, and to disseminate from cell to cell using actin based motility. Other ba
cterial pathogens multiply extracellularly and are able to prevent their in
ternalization by phagocytic cells. Finally, some bacteria are able to persi
st and to multiply within intracellular vacuole in the macrophage, by diver
ting the cell endosomal trafficking. In this review, we will focus on bacte
rial models that have been particularly studied and that illustrate these v
arious cellular strategies.