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Intracellular development and impact of a eukaryotic parasite on its zombified microalgal host in the marine plankton

Authors :
Elisabeth Hehenberger
Johan Decelle
Jeremy Bougoure
Nicole L. Schieber
Rachel M. Templin
Peta L. Clode
Gerard Prensier
Yannick Schwab
Ehsan Kayal
Laure Guillou
Fabien Chevalier
Estelle Bigeard
Benoit Gallet
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2021.

Abstract

SummaryParasites are widespread and diverse in the oceanic plankton, and many of them infect single-celled algae for survival. How these parasites develop and scavenge energy within the host and whether the cellular organization and metabolism of the host is altered remain open questions. Combining quantitative structural and chemical imaging with time-resolved transcriptomics, we unveil dramatic morphological and metabolic changes of the parasite Amoebophrya (Syndiniales) during intracellular infection (e.g. 200-fold increase of mitochondrion volume), particularly following digestion of nutrient-rich host chromosomes. Some of these changes are also found in the apicomplexan parasites (e.g. sequential acristate and cristate mitochondrion, switch from glycolysis to TCA), thus underlining key evolutionary-conserved mechanisms. In the algal host, energy-producing organelles (chloroplast) remain intact during most of the infection, but sugar reserves diminish while lipid droplets increase. Thus, rapid infection of the host nucleus could be a zombifying strategy to digest nutrient-rich chromosomes and escape cytoplasmic defense while benefiting from the maintained C-energy production of the host cell.

Details

Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........d139290cb8777cb1c7d3862e1c4e67fc
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.04.467241