Shigella Puts the Brakes on the Host Cell Cycle

Intestinal epithelial cells serve as the major defense barrier against enteric bacterial infection. However, pathogens have devised remarkable schemes to usurp this formidable immune barrier. In a study recently published in Cell, Iwai et al. expand our understanding of how Shigella colonizes the epithelium by describing bacterial IpaB as a specific inhibitor of the eukaryotic cell division cycle.