Infection and Innate Immunity Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
Genes (Basel). 2021 Jan 30;12(2):202. doi: 10.3390/genes12020202.
Insects in nature interact with a wide variety of microbial enemies including nematodes. These include entomopathogenic nematodes that contain mutualistic bacteria and together are able to infect a broad range of insects in order to complete their life cycle and multiply, filarial nematodes which are vectored by mosquitoes, and other parasitic nematodes. Entomopathogenic nematodes are commonly used in biological control practices and they form excellent research tools for understanding the genetic and functional bases of nematode pathogenicity and insect anti-nematode immunity. In addition, clarifying the mechanism of transmission of filarial nematodes by mosquitoes is critical for devising strategies to reduce disease transmission in humans. In all cases and in order to achieve these goals, it is vital to determine the number and type of insect host genes which are differentially regulated during infection and encode factors with anti-nematode properties. In this respect, the use of transcriptomic approaches has proven a key step for the identification of insect molecules with anti-nematode activity. Here, we review the progress in the field of transcriptomics that deals with the insect response to nematode infection. This information is important because it will expose conserved pathways of anti-nematode immunity in humans.
在自然界中，昆虫与包括线虫在内的多种微生物敌人相互作用。这些微生物包括共生细菌的昆虫病原线虫，它们能够共同感染广泛的昆虫，以完成其生命周期并繁殖，以及由蚊子传播的丝虫线虫和其他寄生线虫。昆虫病原线虫通常用于生物防治实践，它们是研究线虫致病性和昆虫抗线虫免疫的遗传和功能基础的极好工具。此外，阐明蚊子传播丝虫线虫的机制对于制定策略减少人类疾病传播至关重要。在所有情况下，为了实现这些目标，确定在感染过程中差异调节并编码具有抗线虫特性的因子的昆虫宿主基因的数量和类型至关重要。在这方面，转录组学方法的使用已被证明是鉴定具有抗线虫活性的昆虫分子的关键步骤。在这里，我们回顾了与昆虫对线虫感染的反应有关的转录组学领域的进展。这些信息很重要，因为它将揭示人类抗线虫免疫的保守途径。
