The Trojan Horse Strategies of Parasites

Trends in Vaccines and Immunology, Volume 1(2): 1–2, 2021 The Trojan Horse is a legendary figure of a wooden horse used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to invade and destroy the Trojan city. Inside this seemingly harmless horse, supposedly sent as a sign of truce, were Greek warriors who at dusk, when the Trojan defenses were unarmed, took advantage to attack the city. This legendary figure can be used as an excellent analogy for the mechanisms some pathogens have adopted to invade the host and evade detection by the immune system. The ‘Trojan Horse Theory’ in immunology describes the ability of some microorganisms, using cells of the immune system itself as vectors, to escape the immune response.