Multicellular organisms activate immunity upon recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Chitin is the major component of fungal cell walls, and chitin oligosaccharides act as PAMPs in plant and mammalian cells. Microbial pathogens deliver effector proteins to suppress PAMP-triggered host immunity and to establish infection. Here, we show that the LysM domain-containing effector protein Ecp6 of the fungal plant pathogen Cladosporium fulvum mediates virulence through perturbation of chitin-triggered host immunity. During infection, Ecp6 sequesters chitin oligosaccharides that are released from the cell walls of invading hyphae to prevent elicitation of host immunity. This may represent a common strategy of host immune suppression by fungal pathogens, because LysM effectors are widely conserved in the fungal kingdom.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1190859 | DOI Listing |
Front Immunol
January 2025
Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture, Nord University, Bodø, Norway.
is a major causative agent of streptococcosis in Nile tilapia () and understanding its etiology is important to ensure the sustainable development of global tilapia farming. Our research group recently observed contrasting disease patterns in animals infected with two different serotypes (Ib and III). To better understand the basis for these divergent responses, we analyzed the brain transcriptome of Nile tilapia following bacterial exposure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Reprod Biomed
November 2024
Urology and Nephrology Research Center, Research Institute for Urology and Nephrology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU), Tehran, Iran.
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified in China in late December 2019 and led to a pandemic that resulted in millions of confirmed cases and deaths. The causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), uses distinct receptors and co-receptors to enter host cells. Vimentin has emerged as a potential co-receptor for SARS-CoV-2 due to the high level of vimentin expression in testis tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Res Insect Sci
December 2024
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali, India.
Hosts often encounter and must respond to novel pathogens in the wild, that is pathogens that they have not encountered in recent evolutionary history, and therefore are not adapted to. How hosts respond to these novel pathogens and the outcome of such infections can be shaped by the host's evolutionary history, especially by how well adapted the host is to its native pathogens, that is pathogens they have evolved with. Host adaptation to one pathogen can either increase its susceptibility to a novel pathogen, due to specialization of immune defenses and trade-offs between different arms of the immune system, or can decrease susceptibility to novel pathogens by virtue of cross-resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Ther Oncol
March 2025
Department of Pharmacology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Pancreatic cancer is among the most challenging tumors to treat, and due to its immune tolerance characteristics, existing immunotherapy methods are not effective in alleviating the disease. Oncolytic virus therapy, a potential new strategy for treating pancreatic cancer, also faces the limitation of being ineffective when used alone. Elucidating the key host endogenous circular RNAs (circRNAs) involved in M1 virus-mediated killing of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells may help overcome this limitation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethodsX
June 2025
Infection and Innate Immunity Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
The entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) Steinernema carpocapsae and Steinernema hermaphroditum can efficiently infect the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The EPN infective juvenile (IJ) stage is the free-living and non-feeding stage that seeks out suitable insects to infect. While previous studies have described successful infection of melanogaster larvae with a standard amount of 100 IJs, the pathogenicity of a single IJ nematode towards insects remains poorly understood.
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