The book describes the different and exciting pathways which have been developed by pathogenic microbes to manage living inside host cells. It covers intracellular life styles of all relevant pathogenic but also symbiotic microorganisms with respect to the cell biology of the host-microbe interactions and the microbial adaptations for intracellular survival. It features intracellular trafficking pathways and characteristics of intracellular niches of individual microbes. The book also asks questions on the benefits for the microbe with regard to physiological needs and nutritional aspects such as auxotrophy, effects on genome sizes, and consequences for disease and host response/immunity (and the benefits for the host in the cases of symbionts).

Additionally, the book includes those pathogens that are medically less important but represent distinct intracellular niches, trafficking behaviours and virulence traits. The individual chapters also point out future challenges of research for the respective organism.

Ulrich Schaible is Professor of Immunology at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. After graduating from Freiburg University, he obtained his PhD working with Marcus Simon at the Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology, Freiburg. After a postdoc with David Russell at Washington University, St. Louis, USA, he joined the department of Stefan Kaufmann at the Max-Planck-Institute of Infection Biology, Berlin. He combines immunology and cellular microbiology to study host-pathogen-interactions in tuberculosis. He has authored 86 articles and received the Royal Society Wolfsohn Research Merit Award, the GlaxoSmithKline-Foundation for Clinical-Research-Award and the Otto-Westphal-Award of the German Society of Immunology.

Albert Haas was appointed Professor of Cell Biology at Bonn University in 2001. After graduating from Wurzburg University, he obtained his PhD in Microbiology working with Werner Goebel on Listeria pathogenesis. After postdoctoral research in Bill Wickner's lab at UCLA (Los Angeles, CA) and Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH) on yeast cell biology, he returned to Wurzburg University to start his independent research which focuses on questions of phagosome biogenesis. He has authored 35 articles and received the Vector-Laboratories Young Investigator Award (American Society for Microbiology), the Butenandt-Habilitation-Award and the Karl-Lohmann-Award, both from the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.