Phagocytosis Is the Sole Arm of Known Host Defenses That Provides Some Protection Against Microsporidia Infection.

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasites able to infest specifically a large range of species, including insects. The knowledge about the biology of microsporidial infections remains confined to mostly descriptive studies, including molecular approaches such as transcriptomics or proteomics. Thus, functional data to understand insect host defenses are currently lacking.

Phosphatidic acid as a limiting host metabolite for the proliferation of the microsporidium Tubulinosema ratisbonensis in Drosophila flies.

Microsporidia are located at the base of the fungal evolutionary tree. They are obligate intracellular parasites and harness host metabolism to fuel their growth and proliferation. However, how the infestation of cells affects the whole organism and how the organism contributes to parasite proliferation remain poorly understood.

Rapidity of Genomic Adaptations to Prasinovirus Infection in a Marine Microalga.

Prasinoviruses are large dsDNA viruses commonly found in aquatic systems worldwide, where they can infect and lyse unicellular prasinophyte algae such as . Host susceptibility is virus strain-specific, but resistance of susceptible strains to a virulent virus arises frequently. In clonal resistant lines that re-grow, viruses are usually present for many generations, and genes clustered on chromosome 19 show physical rearrangements and differential expression.