Department of Biological Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren'ai Road, Suzhou Dushu Lake Higher Education Town, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, China.
Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, UK.
Commun Biol. 2020 Jan 31;3(1):51. doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-0775-x.
It is still not understood how honey bee parasite changes the gene expression to adapt to the host environment and how the host simultaneously responds to the parasite infection by modifying its own gene expression. To address this question, we studied a trypanosomatid, Lotmaria passim, which can be cultured in medium and inhabit the honey bee hindgut. We found that L. passim decreases mRNAs associated with protein translation, glycolysis, detoxification of radical oxygen species, and kinetoplast respiratory chain to adapt to the anaerobic and nutritionally poor honey bee hindgut during the infection. After the long term infection, the host appears to be in poor nutritional status, indicated by the increase and decrease of take-out and vitellogenin mRNAs, respectively. Simultaneous gene expression profiling of L. passim and honey bee during infection by dual RNA-seq provided insight into how both parasite and host modify their gene expressions.
目前尚不清楚蜜蜂寄生虫如何改变基因表达以适应宿主环境，以及宿主如何通过改变自身基因表达来应对寄生虫感染。为了解决这个问题，我们研究了一种可以在培养基中培养并栖息在蜜蜂后肠中的原生动物，即 Lotmaria passim。我们发现，当 L. passim 感染时，它会降低与蛋白质翻译、糖酵解、活性氧解毒和动基体呼吸链相关的 mRNA，以适应厌氧和营养贫乏的蜜蜂后肠环境。在长期感染后，宿主似乎处于营养不良的状态，这分别表现为取出和卵黄原蛋白 mRNA 的增加和减少。通过双 RNA-seq 对感染过程中的 L. passim 和蜜蜂进行同时的基因表达谱分析，深入了解了寄生虫和宿主是如何改变它们的基因表达的。
