Interestingly, given the high MOI, while most, if not all host cells interacted with multiple aggregates, we found that only few interactions resulted in intracellular replication of L. monocytogenes. Importantly, aggregation as well as ActA upregulation was also induced upon infection of primary HUVEC cells, which similarly to HeLa cells lack E-cadherin expression (Kalender et al., 2022). This evidence concerns the gene ACTA1 and infection.