Factors That Determine Microsporidia Infection and Host Specificity

Willis, Alexandra R.; Reinke, Aaron W.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-93306-7_4

Cited by 20 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…With our data we show that a generalist host range emerged in the Displodere group after the divergence of N. botruosus . One potential caveat to our measurements of host range is that they are only done with a single strain for each microsporidia and host species 16 . However, we see similar results to what was reported with other N. parisii and N. ausubeli strains, and nematode-infecting microsporidia have been observed to mostly infect different host strains at similar levels 19 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomic and phenotypic evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia

Wadi

Jarkass

Tran

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Microsporidia are a large phylum of intracellular parasites that can infect most types of animals. Species in the Nematocida genus can infect nematodes including Caenorhabditis elegans, which has become an important model to study mechanisms of microsporidia infection. To understand the genomic properties and evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia, we sequenced the genomes of nine species of microsporidia, including two genera, Enteropsectra and Pancytospora, without any previously sequenced genomes. Phylogenetic analysis shows that Nematocida is composed of two groups of species. Core cellular processes, including metabolic pathways, are mostly conserved across genera of nematode-infecting microsporidia. Each species encodes unique proteins belonging to large gene families that are likely used to interact with host cells. Most strikingly, we observed one such family, NemLGF1, is present in both Nematocida and Pancytospora species, suggesting horizontal gene transfer between species from different genera. To understand how Nematocida phenotypic traits evolved, we measured the host range, tissue specificity, spore size, and polar tube length of several species in the genus. Our results demonstrate that the ability to infect multiple tissues was likely recently lost in N. homosporus and that species with longer polar tubes are able to infect multiple tissues. Together, our work details both genomic and trait evolution between related microsporidia species and provides a useful resource for further understanding microsporidia evolution and infection mechanisms.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomic and phenotypic evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia

Wadi

Jarkass

Tran

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Microsporidia are a large phylum of eukaryotic obligate intracellular pathogens with a wide host range including humans and agriculturally important animals such as honey bees and shrimp [11][12][13][14]. Microsporidia infections cause developmental delays, a reduction in progeny, and increased mortality [15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Mok

Xiao

Wan

et al. 2022

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Animals are under constant selective pressure from a myriad of diverse pathogens. Microsporidia are ubiquitous animal parasites, but the influence they exert on shaping animal genomes is mostly unknown. Using multiplexed competition assays, we measured the impact of four different species of microsporidia on 22 wild isolates of Caenorhabditis elegans. This resulted in the identification of 13 strains with altered resistance or sensitivity to infection. One of these identified strains, JU1400, is sensitive to an epidermal-infecting species by lacking tolerance to infection. JU1400 is also resistant to an intestinal-infecting species and can specifically recognize and destroy this pathogen. Genetic mapping of JU1400 demonstrates that these two opposing phenotypes are caused by separate alleles. Transcriptional analysis reveals that this lack of tolerance in JU1400 results in a response that shares similarity to that induced by toxins. In contrast, we do not observe JU1400 resistance being regulated at the transcriptional level. The transcriptional response to these four microsporidia species is conserved, with C. elegans strain-specific differences in potential immune genes. Together, our results show that phenotypic differences to microsporidia infection amongst C. elegans are common and that animals can evolve species-specific genetic interactions.

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“…This fungal-related phylum contains over 1400 described species that infect a wide range of animal hosts including invertebrates, vertebrates, and protists (Stentiford et al ., 2016; Bojko et al ., 2022). Although as a phylum microsporidia infect a wide range of hosts, most species only infect one or several closely related hosts (Murareanu et al ., 2021; Willis and Reinke, 2022). Throughout evolution, microsporidia have lost many metabolic and biosynthesis genes which are present in other eukaryotes (Nakjang et al ., 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wan

Troemel

Reinke

2022

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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.Significance statementMicrosporidia are a powerful model to study pathogen evolution, but much is still unknown about how these pathogens have evolved to infect multiple host species. We found that microsporidia express most of their genes similarly even when they are infecting different host species and that related host species respond similarly to different microsporidia. Our results suggests that there are conserved transcriptional responses during microsporidia infection.

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Factors That Determine Microsporidia Infection and Host Specificity

Cited by 20 publications

References 106 publications

Genomic and phenotypic evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia

Genomic and phenotypic evolution of nematode-infecting microsporidia

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

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

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