Affiliation:
1. Ecological Genomics Institute, Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia
is a ubiquitous bacterium and an emerging nosocomial pathogen. This bacterium is resistant to many antibiotics, associated with a number of infections, and a significant health risk, especially for immunocompromised patients. Given that
Caenorhabditis elegans
shares many conserved genetic pathways and pathway components with higher organisms, the study of its interaction with bacterial pathogens has biomedical implications.
S. maltophilia
has been isolated in association with nematodes from grassland soils, and it is likely that
C. elegans
encounters this bacterium in nature. We found that a local
S. maltophilia
isolate, JCMS, is more virulent than the other
S. maltophilia
isolates (R551-3 and K279a) tested. JCMS virulence correlates with intestinal distension and bacterial accumulation and requires the bacteria to be alive. Many of the conserved innate immune pathways that serve to protect
C. elegans
from various pathogenic bacteria also play a role in combating
S. maltophilia
JCMS. However,
S. maltophilia
JCMS is virulent to normally pathogen-resistant DAF-2/16 insulin-like signaling pathway mutants. Furthermore, several insulin-like signaling effector genes were not significantly differentially expressed between
S. maltophilia
JCMS and avirulent bacteria (
Escherichia coli
OP50). Taken together, these findings suggest that
S. maltophilia
JCMS evades the pathogen resistance conferred by the loss of DAF-2/16 pathway components. In summary, we have discovered a novel host-pathogen interaction between
C. elegans
and
S. maltophilia
and established a new animal model with which to study the mode of action of this emerging nosocomial pathogen.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Infectious Diseases,Immunology,Microbiology,Parasitology
Cited by
14 articles.
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