Ni Jay, Sowa Jessica N
Department of Biology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA 19383, USA.
bioRxiv. 2025 Jun 5:2025.06.04.657490. doi: 10.1101/2025.06.04.657490.
The nematode has emerged as a popular model system to investigate cell biology and host-pathogen interactions. Presently, is studied as a natural host of intracellular pathogens such as microsporidia and Orsay virus along with extracellular bacterial and fungal pathogens. The use of as a model in host-pathogen research is limited by the number of naturally occurring pathogens to the organism. Through a sampling project to identify new pathogens of , we identified the fungus as a pathogen of species. We observed the fungus in the intestinal lumen of wild-caught , and co-culturing the wild-caught species with infection reporter confirmed infection by . This study characterizes the fungal infection by in nematodes. Fluorescence microscopy with fungal staining revealed the life cycle of within multiple species at varying growth stages. We observed the killing of nematodes by via intestinal perforation and assessed its' host range through a series of lifespan assays. We investigated the food preference of and determined that nematodes show a preference towards food that contains spores. Lastly, we evaluated common transcriptional immune responses and found that does not induce genes associated with the intracellular pathogen response or other responses seen with previously studied bacterial and fungal pathogens. Characterization of this fungal infection in nematodes will provide new insights into the biology of pathogenic fungi and host immune responses.
线虫已成为研究细胞生物学和宿主-病原体相互作用的常用模型系统。目前，它被作为细胞内病原体（如微孢子虫和奥赛病毒）以及细胞外细菌和真菌病原体的天然宿主进行研究。作为宿主-病原体研究模型的应用受到该生物体自然存在的病原体数量的限制。通过一个识别线虫新病原体的采样项目，我们鉴定出真菌[具体真菌名称未给出]为线虫物种的病原体。我们在野外捕获的线虫的肠腔中观察到了这种真菌，并且将野外捕获的线虫物种与感染报告基因[具体报告基因未给出]共同培养，证实了被[具体真菌名称未给出]感染。本研究描述了线虫中[具体真菌名称未给出]的真菌感染情况。用真菌染色的荧光显微镜观察揭示了[具体真菌名称未给出]在多个不同生长阶段的线虫物种中的生命周期。我们观察到[具体真菌名称未给出]通过肠道穿孔杀死线虫，并通过一系列寿命测定评估了其宿主范围。我们研究了[具体真菌名称未给出]的食物偏好，确定线虫对含有[具体真菌名称未给出]孢子的食物表现出偏好。最后，我们评估了常见的线虫转录免疫反应，发现[具体真菌名称未给出]不会诱导与细胞内病原体反应相关的基因或之前研究的细菌和真菌病原体所引发的其他反应。对线虫中这种真菌感染的描述将为致病真菌的生物学特性和宿主免疫反应提供新的见解。
