scholarly journals Evolution of Developmental GATA Factors in Nematodes

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Ethan Eurmsirilerd ◽  
Morris F. Maduro

GATA transcription factors are found in animals, plants, and fungi. In animals, they have important developmental roles in controlling specification of cell identities and executing tissue-specific differentiation. The Phylum Nematoda is a diverse group of vermiform animals that inhabit ecological niches all over the world. Both free-living and parasitic species are known, including those that cause human infectious disease. To date, GATA factors in nematodes have been studied almost exclusively in the model system C. elegans and its close relatives. In this study, we use newly available sequences to identify GATA factors across the nematode phylum. We find that most species have fewer than six GATA factors, but some species have 10 or more. Comparisons of gene and protein structure suggest that there were at most two GATA factors at the base of the phylum, which expanded by duplication and modification to result in a core set of four factors. The high degree of structural similarity with the corresponding orthologues in C. elegans suggests that the nematode GATA factors share similar functions in development.

Biomolecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maoxuan Liu ◽  
Sujogya Kumar Panda ◽  
Walter Luyten

Intestinal parasitic nematodes infect approximately two billion people worldwide. In the absence of vaccines for human intestinal nematodes, control of infections currently relies mainly on chemotherapy, but resistance is an increasing problem. Thus, there is an urgent need for the discovery and development of new anthelmintic drugs, especially ones with novel mechanisms of action. Medicinal plants hold great promise as a source of effective treatments, including anthelmintic therapy. They have been used traditionally for centuries and are mostly safe (if not, their toxicity is well-known). However, in most medicinal plants the compounds active against nematodes have not been identified thus far. The free-living nematode C. elegans was demonstrated to be an excellent model system for the discovery of new anthelmintics and for characterizing their mechanism of action or resistance. The compounds discussed in this review are of botanical origin and were published since 2002. Most of them need further studies of their toxicity, mechanisms and structure-activity relationship to assess more fully their potential as drugs.


Endocrinology ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 149 (6) ◽  
pp. 2826-2839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Janssen ◽  
Ellen Meelkop ◽  
Marleen Lindemans ◽  
Karen Verstraelen ◽  
Steven J. Husson ◽  
...  

Members of the cholecystokinin (CCK)/gastrin family of peptides, including the arthropod sulfakinins, and their cognate receptors, play an important role in the regulation of feeding behavior and energy homeostasis. Despite many efforts after the discovery of CCK/gastrin immunoreactivity in nematodes 23 yr ago, the identity of these nematode CCK/gastrin-related peptides has remained a mystery ever since. The Caenorhabditis elegans genome contains two genes with high identity to the mammalian CCK receptors and their invertebrate counterparts, the sulfakinin receptors. By using the potential C. elegans CCK receptors as a fishing hook, we have isolated and identified two CCK-like neuropeptides encoded by neuropeptide-like protein-12 (nlp-12) as the endogenous ligands of these receptors. The neuropeptide-like protein-12 peptides have a very limited neuronal expression pattern, seem to occur in vivo in the unsulfated form, and react specifically with a human CCK-8 antibody. Both receptors and ligands share a high degree of structural similarity with their vertebrate and arthropod counterparts, and also display similar biological activities with respect to digestive enzyme secretion and fat storage. Our data indicate that the gastrin-CCK signaling system was already well established before the divergence of protostomes and deuterostomes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 404 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris F. Maduro ◽  
Gina Broitman-Maduro ◽  
Hailey Choi ◽  
Francisco Carranza ◽  
Allison Chia-Yi Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Parasitology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 141 (9) ◽  
pp. 1203-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
VICTORIA GILLAN ◽  
EILEEN DEVANEY

SUMMARYNematodes are amongst the most successful and abundant organisms on the planet with approximately 30 000 species described, although the actual number of species is estimated to be one million or more. Despite sharing a relatively simple and invariant body plan, there is considerable diversity within the phylum. Nematodes have evolved to colonize most ecological niches, and can be free-living or can parasitize plants or animals to the detriment of the host organism. In this review we consider the role of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) in the nematode life cycle. We describe studies on Hsp90 in the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and comparative work on the parasitic species Brugia pahangi, and consider whether a dependence upon Hsp90 can be exploited for the control of parasitic species.


Development ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Bossinger ◽  
E. Schierenberg

The pattern of autofluorescence in the two free-living namatodes Rhabditis dolichura and Caenorhabditis compared. In C. elegans, during later embryogenesis cells develop a typical bluish autofluorescence as illumination, while in Rh. dolichura a strong already present in the unfertilized egg. Using a new,


Parasitology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 146 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veeren M Chauhan ◽  
David I Pritchard

AbstractCaenorhabditis elegans is a free-living nematode that resides in soil and typically feeds on bacteria. We postulate that haematophagic C. elegans could provide a model to evaluate vaccine responses to intestinal proteins from hematophagous nematode parasites, such as Necator americanus. Human erythrocytes, fluorescently labelled with tetramethylrhodamine succinimidyl ester, demonstrated a stable bright emission and facilitated visualization of feeding events with fluorescent microscopy. C. elegans were observed feeding on erythrocytes and were shown to rupture red blood cells upon capture to release and ingest their contents. In addition, C. elegans survived equally on a diet of erythrocytes. There was no statistically significant difference in survival when compared with a diet of Escherichia coli OP50. The enzymes responsible for the digestion and detoxification of haem and haemoglobin, which are key components of the hookworm vaccine, were found in the C. elegans intestine. These findings support our postulate that free-living nematodes could provide a model for the assessment of neutralizing antibodies to current and future hematophagous parasite vaccine candidates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1835) ◽  
pp. 20160942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinshui Zheng ◽  
Donghai Peng ◽  
Ling Chen ◽  
Hualin Liu ◽  
Feng Chen ◽  
...  

Plant-parasitic nematodes were found in 4 of the 12 clades of phylum Nematoda. These nematodes in different clades may have originated independently from their free-living fungivorous ancestors. However, the exact evolutionary process of these parasites is unclear. Here, we sequenced the genome sequence of a migratory plant nematode, Ditylenchus destructor . We performed comparative genomics among the free-living nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans and all the plant nematodes with genome sequences available. We found that, compared with C. elegans , the core developmental control processes underwent heavy reduction, though most signal transduction pathways were conserved. We also found D. destructor contained more homologies of the key genes in the above processes than the other plant nematodes. We suggest that Ditylenchus spp. may be an intermediate evolutionary history stage from free-living nematodes that feed on fungi to obligate plant-parasitic nematodes. Based on the facts that D. destructor can feed on fungi and has a relatively short life cycle, and that it has similar features to both C. elegans and sedentary plant-parasitic nematodes from clade 12, we propose it as a new model to study the biology, biocontrol of plant nematodes and the interaction between nematodes and plants.


1999 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 514-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia G. Acinas ◽  
Josefa Antón ◽  
Francisco Rodríguez-Valera

ABSTRACT In a previous study (S. G. Acinas, F. Rodrı́guez-Valera, and C. Pedrós-Alió, FEMS Microbiol. Ecol. 24:27–40, 1997), community fingerprinting by 16S rDNA restriction analysis applied to Mediterranean offshore waters showed that the free-living pelagic bacterial community was very different from the bacterial cells aggregated or attached to particles of more than about 8 μm. Here we have studied both assemblages at three depths (5, 50, and 400 m) by cloning and sequencing the 16S rDNA obtained from the same samples, and we have also studied the samples by scanning electron microscopy to detect morphology patterns. As expected, the sequences retrieved from the assemblages were very different. The subsample of attached bacteria contained very little diversity, with close relatives of a well-known species of marine bacteria, Alteromonas macleodii, representing the vast majority of the clones at every depth. On the other hand, the free-living assemblage was highly diverse and varied with depth. At 400 m, close relatives of cultivated γProteobacteria predominated, but as shown by other authors, near the surface most clones were related to phylotypes described only by sequence, in which the α Proteobacteria of the SAR11 cluster predominated. The new technique of rDNA internal spacer analysis has been utilized, confirming these results. Clones representative of the A. macleodii cluster have been completely sequenced, producing a picture that fits well with the idea that they could represent a genus with at least two species and with a characteristic depth distribution.


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