Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States.
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States.
Elife. 2018 Jul 26;7:e34414. doi: 10.7554/eLife.34414.
Many microbes induce striking behavioral changes in their animal hosts, but how they achieve this is poorly understood, especially at the molecular level. Mechanistic understanding has been largely constrained by the lack of an experimental system amenable to molecular manipulation. We recently discovered a strain of the behavior-manipulating fungal pathogen infecting wild , and established methods to infect in the lab. Lab-infected flies manifest the moribund behaviors characteristic of infection: hours before death, they climb upward, extend their proboscides, affixing in place, then raise their wings, clearing a path for infectious spores to launch from their abdomens. We found that invades the nervous system, suggesting a direct means by which the fungus could induce behavioral changes. Given the vast molecular toolkit available for , we believe this new system will enable rapid progress in understanding how manipulates host behavior.
许多微生物会在其动物宿主身上引起显著的行为变化，但人们对它们是如何做到这一点知之甚少，尤其是在分子水平上。由于缺乏适合分子操作的实验系统，因此对其机制的理解在很大程度上受到了限制。我们最近发现了一种可以操纵行为的真菌病原体正在感染野生昆虫，并建立了在实验室中感染昆虫的方法。实验室感染的苍蝇表现出与感染特征相符的濒死行为：在死亡前数小时，它们向上攀爬，伸出喙，固定在一个地方，然后抬起翅膀，为从腹部释放传染性孢子清理出一条通道。我们发现，感染了昆虫的神经系统，这表明真菌可能通过直接的方式来诱导行为变化。鉴于有大量可供使用的分子工具，我们相信这个新系统将使人们能够更快地了解真菌是如何操纵宿主行为的。
