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Cell-to-cell spread of microsporidia causes C. elegans organs to form syncytia

View ORCID ProfileKeir M. Balla, Robert J. Luallen, Malina A. Bakowski, Emily R. Troemel
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/053181
Keir M. Balla
Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
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Robert J. Luallen
Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
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Malina A. Bakowski
Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
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Emily R. Troemel
Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
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  • For correspondence: etroemel@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

The growth of pathogens is dictated by their interactions with the host environment. Many obligate intracellular pathogens undergo several cellular decisions as they progress through their life cycles inside of host cells. We studied this process for several species of microsporidia in the genus Nematocida in their co-evolved animal host Caenorhabditis elegans. We found that microsporidia can restructure multicellular host tissues into a single contiguous multinucleate cell. In particular, we found that all three Nematocida species we studied were able to spread across the cells of C. elegans tissues before forming spores, with two species causing syncytial formation in the intestine, and one species causing syncytial formation in the muscle. We also found that the decision to switch from replication to differentiation in N. parisii was altered by the density of infection, suggesting that environmental cues influence the dynamics of the pathogen life cycle. These findings show how microsporidia can maximize the use of host space for growth, and that environmental cues in the host can regulate a developmental switch in the pathogen.

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Posted May 13, 2016.
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Cell-to-cell spread of microsporidia causes C. elegans organs to form syncytia
Keir M. Balla, Robert J. Luallen, Malina A. Bakowski, Emily R. Troemel
bioRxiv 053181; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/053181
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Cell-to-cell spread of microsporidia causes C. elegans organs to form syncytia
Keir M. Balla, Robert J. Luallen, Malina A. Bakowski, Emily R. Troemel
bioRxiv 053181; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/053181

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