Infection Strategies of Clade V Nematode Parasites by way of Specific Effectors in Heterorhabditis bacteriophora

The entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora is uniquely positioned to serve as a model for understanding the genetic basis of parasitism. Its close relationship to the model organism C. elegans provides a strong framework for interpreting genetic information and free-living nematode background. Additionally, H. bacteriophora has evolutionary proximity to a number of vertebrate-parasitic nematodes, so the information gleaned from the entomopathogen can be compared to these species to identify common virulence motifs. These aspects of the phylogenetic placement of H. bacteriophora have prompted a number of genomic and transcriptomic studies meant to highlight potential virulence factors, but the information gained from bioinformatic analyses is not always sufficient for understanding the contribution of a gene. The function of a given protein can often have equally plausible roles in regulating the parasite’s own physiology or interfering with that of the host, and this ambiguity calls for in vivo study of each candidate virulence factor’s ability to contribute to an infection.

Author

• Kenney, Eric

Keyword

• Irulence
• Lysozyme
• Glycosyltransferase
• Nematode
• Heterorhabditis
• Drosophila
• Carboxypeptidase
• Immunity

Date created

• 2020

Related url

•  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X2030375X
•  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02372/full
•  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69306-2

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Biological Sciences

Degree

• Ph.D.

Committee Member(s)

• Hawdon, John
• O'Halloran, Damien
• Eleftherianos, Ioannis

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/hm50ts46s