STING mediates immune responses in the closest living relatives of animals

Woznica, Arielle; Kumar, Ashwani; Cr, Sturge; Xing, Chunlei; N, King; Pfeiffer, Julie K.

doi:10.1101/2021.05.13.443778

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 72 publications

(140 reference statements)

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“…Although the composition of the animal gut microbiome often varies between individuals in a species, many host species harbor a core set of microbes, with which they participate in stable metabolic interactions and may coevolve [22,23]. Indeed, choanoflagellates express homologs of Toll-like receptors that, in animals, mediate interactions with gut bacteria to maintain homeostasis [10,41]. In B. monosierra , OceaML1 was found in 100% of rosettes assessed and was the most abundant bacterium in the microbiome, suggesting that its interactions with B. monosierra may be essential for B. monosierra biology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial choanoflagellate isolated from Mono Lake harbors a microbiome

Hake

West

McDonald³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Choanoflagellates offer key insights into bacterial influences on the origin and early evolution of animals. Here we report the isolation and characterization of a new colonial choanoflagellate species, Salpingoeca monosierra, that, unlike previously characterized species, harbors a stable microbiome. S. monosierra was isolated from Mono Lake, California and forms large spherical colonies that are more than an order of magnitude larger than those formed by the closely related S. rosetta. By designing fluorescence in situ hybridization probes from metagenomic sequences, we found that S. monosierra colonies are colonized by members of the halotolerant and closely related Saccharospirillaceae and Oceanospirillaceae, as well as purple sulfur bacteria (Ectothiorhodospiraceae) and non-sulfur Rhodobacteraceae. This relatively simple microbiome in a close relative of animals presents a new experimental model for investigating the evolution of stable interactions among eukaryotes and bacteria.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial choanoflagellate isolated from Mono Lake harbors a microbiome

Hake

West

McDonald³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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The cyclic dinucleotide 2’3’-cGAMP induces a broad anti-bacterial and anti-viral response in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

Margolis¹,

Dietzen²,

Hayes³

et al. 2021

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In mammals, the cGAS-cGAMP-STING pathway is crucial for sensing viral infection and initiating an anti-viral type I interferon response. cGAS and STING are highly conserved genes that originated in bacteria and are present in most animals. By contrast, interferons only emerged in vertebrates; thus, the function of STING in invertebrates is unclear. Here, we use the STING ligand 2′3′-cGAMP to activate immune responses in a model cnidarian invertebrate, the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. Using RNA-Seq, we found that 2′3′-cGAMP induces robust transcription of both anti-viral and anti-bacterial genes, including the conserved transcription factor NF-κB. Knockdown experiments identified a role for NF-κB in specifically inducing anti-bacterial genes downstream of 2′3′-cGAMP, and some of these genes were also found to be induced during Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Furthermore, we characterized the protein product of one of the putative anti-bacterial genes, the N. vectensis homolog of Dae4, and found that it has conserved anti-bacterial activity. This work describes an unexpected role of a cGAMP sensing pathway in anti-bacterial immunity and suggests that a broad transcriptional response is an evolutionarily ancestral output of 2′3′-cGAMP signaling in animals.

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Spatial transcriptomics identifies novelPseudomonas aeruginosavirulence factors

Zhou,

Negrón,

Abbondante

et al. 2024

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The interactions of a pathogen with the host take place within the confines of infected tissues. However, current technologies do not allow for contextual characterization of infection. We report a unified spatial transcriptomic analysis detecting pathogen- and host-transcripts simultaneously. We showcase our approach using aP. aeruginosa-induced ocular infection, where we observed differential enrichment of host and bacterial transcripts at specific anatomical sites. The ridge regression model, trained using a minimum of 150 host gene features, accurately predicted bacterial burden in tissue regions. The tissue-in-depth gene expression enrichment analysis identified bacterial transcript PA2590, encoding a currently uncharacterized gene as deeply penetrant. Infection experiments with the PA2590 transposon deletion mutant strain caused less disease than the WT strain. Comparative structural analysis identified the PA2590 gene product as an iron-scavenging and cobalamin transporter. Cumulatively, our data highlight coordinated spatial interplay between the host and the pathogen representing an approach to identify novel virulence traits.

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STING mediates immune responses in the closest living relatives of animals

Cited by 3 publications

References 72 publications

Colonial choanoflagellate isolated from Mono Lake harbors a microbiome

Colonial choanoflagellate isolated from Mono Lake harbors a microbiome

The cyclic dinucleotide 2’3’-cGAMP induces a broad anti-bacterial and anti-viral response in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

Spatial transcriptomics identifies novelPseudomonas aeruginosavirulence factors

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