Shokal Upasana, Eleftherianos Ioannis
Department of Biological Sciences, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.
J Innate Immun. 2017;9(1):83-93. doi: 10.1159/000450610. Epub 2016 Oct 22.
Despite important progress in identifying the molecules that participate in the immune response of Drosophila melanogaster to microbial infections, the involvement of thioester-containing proteins (TEPs) in the antibacterial immunity of the fly is not fully clarified. Previous studies mostly focused on identifying the function of TEP2, TEP3 and TEP6 molecules in the D. melanogaster immune system. Here, we investigated the role of TEP4 in the regulation and function of D. melanogaster host defense against 2 virulent pathogens from the genus Photorhabdus, i.e. the insect pathogenic bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens and the emerging human pathogen P. asymbiotica. We demonstrate that Tep4 is strongly upregulated in adult flies following the injection of Photorhabdus bacteria. We also show that Tep4 loss-of-function mutants are resistant to P. luminescens but not to P. asymbiotica infection. In addition, we find that inactivation of Tep4 results in the upregulation of the Toll and Imd immune pathways, and the downregulation of the Jak/Stat and Jnk pathways upon Photorhabdus infection. We document that loss of Tep4 promotes melanization and phenoloxidase activity in the mutant flies infected with Photorhabdus. Together, these findings generate novel insights into the immune role of TEP4 as a regulator and effector of the D. melanogaster antibacterial immune response.
尽管在鉴定参与黑腹果蝇对微生物感染免疫反应的分子方面取得了重要进展,但含硫酯蛋白(TEPs)在果蝇抗菌免疫中的作用尚未完全阐明。先前的研究主要集中于鉴定TEP2、TEP3和TEP6分子在黑腹果蝇免疫系统中的功能。在此,我们研究了TEP4在黑腹果蝇宿主防御来自发光杆菌属的两种致病病原体(即昆虫致病细菌发光杆菌和新出现的人类病原体共生菌)的调节和功能中的作用。我们证明,注射发光杆菌后,成年果蝇体内的Tep4会强烈上调。我们还表明,Tep4功能缺失突变体对发光杆菌有抗性,但对共生菌感染没有抗性。此外,我们发现,Tep4失活会导致在感染发光杆菌后Toll和Imd免疫途径上调,而Jak/Stat和Jnk途径下调。我们记录到,Tep4缺失会促进感染发光杆菌的突变果蝇的黑化和酚氧化酶活性。总之,这些发现为TEP4作为黑腹果蝇抗菌免疫反应的调节因子和效应子的免疫作用提供了新的见解。