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Wolbachia infection-responsive immune genes suppress Plasmodium falciparum infection in Anopheles stephensi.
- Source :
-
PLoS pathogens [PLoS Pathog] 2024 Apr 10; Vol. 20 (4), pp. e1012145. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Apr 10 (Print Publication: 2024). - Publication Year :
- 2024
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Abstract
- Wolbachia, a maternally transmitted symbiotic bacterium of insects, can suppress a variety of human pathogens in mosquitoes, including malaria-causing Plasmodium in the Anopheles vector. However, the mechanistic basis of Wolbachia-mediated Plasmodium suppression in mosquitoes is not well understood. In this study, we compared the midgut and carcass transcriptomes of stably infected Anopheles stephensi with Wolbachia wAlbB to uninfected mosquitoes in order to discover Wolbachia infection-responsive immune genes that may play a role in Wolbachia-mediated anti-Plasmodium activity. We show that wAlbB infection upregulates 10 putative immune genes and downregulates 14 in midguts, while it upregulates 31 putative immune genes and downregulates 15 in carcasses at 24 h after blood-fed feeding, the time at which the Plasmodium ookinetes are traversing the midgut tissue. Only a few of these regulated immune genes were also significantly differentially expressed between Wolbachia-infected and non-infected midguts and carcasses of sugar-fed mosquitoes. Silencing of the Wolbachia infection-responsive immune genes TEP 4, TEP 15, lysozyme C2, CLIPB2, CLIPB4, PGRP-LD and two novel genes (a peritrophin-44-like gene and a macro domain-encoding gene) resulted in a significantly greater permissiveness to P. falciparum infection. These results indicate that Wolbachia infection modulates mosquito immunity and other processes that are likely to decrease Anopheles permissiveness to Plasmodium infection.<br />Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.<br /> (Copyright: © 2024 Vandana et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
- Subjects :
- Animals
Mosquito Vectors parasitology
Mosquito Vectors microbiology
Mosquito Vectors immunology
Insect Proteins genetics
Insect Proteins metabolism
Insect Proteins immunology
Transcriptome
Female
Anopheles parasitology
Anopheles microbiology
Anopheles immunology
Wolbachia immunology
Plasmodium falciparum immunology
Malaria, Falciparum immunology
Malaria, Falciparum parasitology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1553-7374
- Volume :
- 20
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- PLoS pathogens
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 38598552
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1012145