The agent of Q fever, Coxiella burnetii, is an obligate intracellular bacterium that causes acute and chronic infections. The study of C. burnetii pathogenesis has benefited from two recent fundamental advances: improved genetic tools and the ability to grow the bacterium in extracellular media. In this Review, we describe how these recent advances have improved our understanding of C. burnetii invasion and host cell modulation, including the formation of replication-permissive Coxiella-containing vacuoles. Furthermore, we describe the Dot/Icm (defect in organelle trafficking/intracellular multiplication) system, which is used by C. burnetii to secrete a range of effector proteins into the host cell, and we discuss the role of these effectors in remodelling the host cell.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 16. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 November 2025.
All research outputs
#2,649,956
of 29,669,692 outputs
Outputs from Nature Reviews Microbiology
#1,037
of 3,091 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,065
of 219,044 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Reviews Microbiology
#8
of 57 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,669,692 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,091 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 43.1. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 219,044 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 57 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
