PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Xing Zhang
AU  - Benjamin Harding
AU  - Dina Aggad
AU  - Damien Courtine
AU  - Jia-Xuan Chen
AU  - Nathalie Pujol
AU  - Jonathan J. Ewbank
TI  - Antagonistic fungal enterotoxins intersect at multiple levels with host innate immune defences
AID  - 10.1101/2020.11.23.391201
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.11.23.391201
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/23/2020.11.23.391201.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/23/2020.11.23.391201.full
AB  - Animals and plants need to defend themselves from pathogen attack. Their defences drive innovation in virulence mechanisms, leading to never-ending cycles of co-evolution in both hosts and pathogens. A full understanding of host immunity therefore requires examination of pathogen virulence strategies. Here, we take advantage of the well-studied innate immune system of Caenorhabditis elegans to dissect the action of two virulence factors from its natural fungal pathogen Drechmeria coniospora. We show that these two enterotoxins have strikingly different effects when expressed individually in the nematode epidermis. One is able to interfere with diverse aspects of host cell biology, altering vesicle trafficking and preventing the key STAT-like transcription factor STA-2 from activating defensive antimicrobial peptide gene expression. The second, potentially as a consequence of a host surveillance mechanism, increases STA-2 levels in the nucleus, modifies the nucleolus, and causes increased defence gene expression. Our results highlight the remarkably complex and potentially antagonistic mechanisms that come into play in the interaction between co-evolved hosts and pathogens.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.