Doherty Jean-François, Matthews Benjamin J
Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Front Insect Sci. 2022 Jul 7;2:938644. doi: 10.3389/finsc.2022.938644. eCollection 2022.
Insects and parasites dominate the biosphere, in terms of known biodiversity and mode of life, respectively. Consequently, insects play a part in many host-parasite systems, either as parasite, host, or both. Moreover, a lot of these systems involve adaptive parasite-induced changes of host phenotype (typically behavior or morphology), which is commonly known as host manipulation. While many host manipulation systems have been described within the last few decades, the proximate mechanisms that underpin host phenotypic change are still largely unknown. Given the intimate co-evolutionary history of host-parasite systems, teasing apart the intricate network of biochemical reactions involved in host manipulation requires the integration of various complementary technologies. In this perspective, we stress the importance of multidisciplinary research on host manipulation, such as high-throughput sequencing methods (genomics and transcriptomics) to search for candidate mechanisms that are activated during a manipulation event. Then, we argue that gene editing technologies, specifically the CRISPR-Cas9 system, are a powerful way to test for the functional roles of candidate mechanisms, in both the parasite and the host. Finally, given the sheer diversity of unique host-parasite systems discovered to date, there is indeed a tremendous potential to create novel non-traditional model systems that could greatly expand our capacity to test the fundamental aspects of behavior and behavioral regulation.
就已知的生物多样性和生活方式而言，昆虫和寄生虫分别在生物圈中占据主导地位。因此，昆虫在许多宿主 - 寄生虫系统中发挥作用，既可以作为寄生虫，也可以作为宿主，或者两者兼具。此外，许多这样的系统涉及寄生虫诱导的宿主表型适应性变化（通常是行为或形态），这通常被称为宿主操控。虽然在过去几十年中已经描述了许多宿主操控系统，但支撑宿主表型变化的近端机制在很大程度上仍然未知。鉴于宿主 - 寄生虫系统密切的共同进化历史，梳理宿主操控中涉及的复杂生化反应网络需要整合各种互补技术。从这个角度来看，我们强调对宿主操控进行多学科研究的重要性，例如高通量测序方法（基因组学和转录组学），以寻找在操控事件中被激活的候选机制。然后，我们认为基因编辑技术，特别是CRISPR - Cas9系统，是测试候选机制在寄生虫和宿主中功能作用的有力方法。最后，鉴于迄今为止发现的独特宿主 -寄生虫系统种类繁多，创建新型非传统模型系统确实具有巨大潜力，这可以极大地扩展我们测试行为和行为调节基本方面的能力。
