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SUMMARY:The Drosophila defense towards nematodes and the contribution of d
 anger signals
DTSTART:20160905T150000
DTEND:20160905T160000
DTSTAMP:20260916T044003Z
UID:2653afe7e58114cbc1faf429bc2edeed9eb759ea47c58a9f6ae32748
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Badrul AREFIN\nInsects have an evolutionary conserved innate i
 mmune system to fight different pathogens and to control damage via danger
  signals (without infection). During the last two decades\, significant pr
 ogress has been made in insect immunity\, including for example\, discover
 ies of two major immune pathways namely Toll and Imd. Despite the advancem
 ent of our knowledge on insect defenses against bacteria and fungi\, littl
 e is known about the defense against entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN). Mor
 eover\, nematodes have devastating consequences in human health and in agr
 iculture. The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of the D
 rosophila defense towards nematodes and about the contribution of danger s
 ignals\, and translate this knowledge to vertebrate system due to the simi
 larities of many genes.\nHeterorhabditis bacteriophora are entomopathogeni
 c parasitic worms that contain the obligate endosymbionts Photorhabdus lum
 inescens. We provide for the first time a genome-wide transcriptional anal
 ysis of Drosophila larvae infected with EPN to elucidate their interaction
 s with the aim to get a better picture of the Drosophila defense to nemato
 des\, By comparison of infected and non-infected larvae\, we found a total
  of 642 transcripts that are differentially regulated upon nematode infect
 ion. Gene ontology (GO) analysis showed one-quarter immune-related genes o
 ut of the top 100-upregulated genes. Further functional analysis identifie
 d a thioester containing complement-like protein (TEP3)\, a basement membr
 ane component (Glutactin)\, a recognition protein (GNBP-like-3) and severa
 l small peptides\, which upon loss showed increased susceptibility after n
 ematode infection. This study unravels a novel function in immunity for so
 me of the genes.\nWe then investigate the role of cellular immunity of Dro
 sophila to nematodes and the innate immune response in a danger situation.
  For that\, Drosophila blood cells (hemocytes) were genetically depleted. 
 We find that this induces massive lamellocytes differentiation when apopto
 sis is induced in naïve larval plasmatocytes and crystal cells\, emergenc
 e of melanotic masses\, up- and down-regulation of Toll and Imd pathway re
 spectively\, and a strong defect in adult legs. Further investigations sho
 wed that these phenotypes are mediated by nitric oxide and taken together 
 these findings suggest a pro-inflammatory response of Drosophila.
LOCATION:AI 1153 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==AI%201153
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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