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Citation Pukkila-Worley R, Ausubel FM, Mylonakis E. Candida albicans infection of Caenorhabditis elegans induces antifungal immune defenses. PLoS Pathog, 2011.
PubMed ID 21731485
Short Description Candida albicans infection of Caenorhabditis elegans induces antifungal immune defenses.
GEO Record: GSE27401 Platform: GPL200
Download gene-centric, log2 transformed data: WBPaper00039851.ce.mr.csv
# of Conditions 9
Full Description 1316625150_help Candida albicans yeast cells are found in the intestine of most humans, yet this opportunist can invade host tissues and cause life-threatening infections in susceptible individuals. To better understand the host factors that underlie susceptibility to candidiasis, we developed a new model to study antifungal innate immunity. We demonstrate that the yeast form of C. albicans establishes an intestinal infection in Caenorhabditis elegans, whereas heat-killed yeast are avirulent. Genome-wide, transcription-profiling analysis of C. elegans infected with C. albicans yeast showed that exposure to C. albicans stimulated a rapid host response involving 313 genes (124 upregulated and 189 downregulated, ~1.6% of the genome) many of which encode antimicrobial, secreted or detoxification proteins. Interestingly, the host genes affected by C. albicans exposure overlapped only to a small extent with the distinct transcriptional responses to the pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Staphylococcus aureus, indicating that there is a high degree of immune specificity toward different bacterial species and C. albicans. Furthermore, genes induced by P. aeruginosa and S. aureus were strongly over-represented among the genes downregulated during C. albicans infection, suggesting that in response to fungal pathogens, nematodes selectively repress the transcription of antibacterial immune effectors. A similar phenomenon is well known in the plant immune response, but has not been described previously in metazoans. Finally, 56% of the genes induced by live C. albicans were also upregulated by heat-killed yeast. These data suggest that a large part of the transcriptional response to C. albicans is mediated through "pattern recognition," an ancient immune surveillance mechanism able to detect conserved microbial molecules (so-called pathogen-associated molecular patterns or PAMPs). This study provides new information on the evolution and regulation of the innate immune response to divergent pathogens and demonstrates that nematodes selectively mount specific antifungal defenses at the expense of antibacterial responses.
Experimental Details:
WBPaper00039851:C_albicans_alive_rep1
WBPaper00039851:C_albicans_alive_rep2
WBPaper00039851:C_albicans_alive_rep3
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_C_albicans_rep1
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_C_albicans_rep2
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_C_albicans_rep3
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_E_coli_rep1
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_E_coli_rep2
WBPaper00039851:Heat_Killed_E_coli_rep3.
Tags 1316625150_help
Method: microarray, Species: Caenorhabditis elegans, Topic: innate immune response