Conservation of Nematocida microsporidia gene expression and host response in Caenorhabditis nematodes

Abstract

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasites that are known to infect most types of animals. Many species of microsporidia can infect multiple related hosts, but it is not known if microsporidia express different genes depending upon which host species is infected or if the host response to infection is specific to each microsporidia species. To address these questions, we took advantage of two species of Nematocida microsporidia, N. parisii and N. ausubeli, that infect two species of Caenorhabditis nematodes, C. elegans and C. briggsae. We performed RNA-seq at several time points for each host infected with either microsporidia species. We observed that Nematocida transcription was largely independent of its host. We also observed that the host transcriptional response was similar when infected with either microsporidia species. Finally, we analyzed if the host response to microsporidia infection was conserved across host species. We observed that although many of the genes upregulated in response to infection are not direct orthologs, the same expanded gene families are upregulated in both Caenorhabditis hosts. Together our results describe the transcriptional interactions of Nematocida infection in Caenorhabditis hosts and demonstrate that these responses are evolutionarily conserved.

High-throughput phenotyping of infection by diverse microsporidia species reveals a wildC. elegansstrain with opposing resistance and susceptibility traits

“…This strain-specific-response of C. elegans has also been observed with several bacterial pathogens, suggesting that there exists a diversity of innate immune responses within the C. elegans population [68]. We also observe more strain-specific regulated genes than pathogen-specific regulated genes, suggesting that C. elegans responds similarly to infection by different species of Nematocida [69].…”

Genomic and phenotypic evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia

“…The first of these to be characterized was Nematocida parisii, which naturally infects the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans [20]. This species has been used as model to understand microsporidian infection of a host, host immune responses to infection, and identify inhibitors of microsporidian infection [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Other species that infect the intestine, N. ausubeli and N. ironsii, have also been identified [20,21].…”

The intracellular parasite Anncaliia algerae induces a massive miRNA down-regulation in human cells

“…A study in Caenorhabditis nematodes infected by Nosema parisii and N.ausubeli , two other microsporidian species harboring TE in their genomes [ 71 ], also reported host responses with similarities to C. elegans infection by two RNA viruses [ 72 ].…”