Project description:The discovery of white-opaque switching in natural MTLa/alpha isolates of Candida albicans sheds new light on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and host adaptation.
Project description:The discovery of white-opaque switching in natural MTLa/alpha isolates of Candida albicans sheds new light on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and host adaptation. Comparing gene expression of white and opaque cells of a MTL a/alpha strain
Project description:Host-pathogen co-evolutionary dynamics force microbial plant pathogens to constantly develop and adjust specific adaptations to thrive in their plant host, and therefore also act as strong drivers of divergence and speciation in pathogens. Factors that confer host specialization and determine host specificity are very diverse and range from molecular and morphological strategies to metabolic and reproductive adaptations. Identification of these key factors is a major goal in the study of pathogen evolution and may aid the development of sustainable crops and crop protection strategies. We here took a novel experimental approach and conducted comparative microscopy and transcriptome analyses of the closely related, recently diverged fungal pathogens Zymoseptoria tritici, Z. pseudotritici, and Z. ardabiliae that establish compatible and incompatible interactions with wheat. Although infections of the incompatible species induce plant defense response during invasion of stomatal openings, we found a highly conserved early-infection program among the three species. The transcriptional programs of the three pathogens are conserved to a large extent, as only 9.2% of the 8,885 orthologous genes are significantly differentially expressed during initial infection of wheat. The genes up-regulated in the compatible pathogen reflect adaptation to growth in wheat tissue e.g., by re-programming of fungal metabolism. In contrast, genes primarily involved in counteracting cell stress and damage are strongly induced in the incompatible species. Based on the species-specific gene expression profiles, we further identified nine candidate genes encoding putative effectors and host-specificity determinants in Z. tritici. These effectors are strongly induced in the compatible species and may interfere with host immune suppression. We also identify putative necrotrophic effectors which are induced at the onset of necrotrophic growth. Together, the results presented here indicate that host specialization has involved transcriptional adaptation of a relatively small number of genes. Our findings demonstrate the potential comparative analyses of compatible and incompatible infections present for identifying traits involved in pathogen evolution and host specialization.
Project description:Part of a study to determine the impact of genome evolution on host adaptation of a group of Salmonella Typhimurium. The experiment is designed to determine the impact of culture at elevated temperature on gene experssion.
Project description:Salmonella infections are among the most common foodborne diseases worldwide. The Enteritidis and Dublin serovars of Salmonella enterica are closely related yet they differ significantly in pathogenicity and epidemiology. Enteritidis is a broad-host-range serovar that commonly causes gastroenteritis and infrequently causes invasive disease in humans. Dublin mainly colonizes cattle but upon infecting humans often results in invasive disease. The aim of this work was to elucidate the molecular factors responsible for the differential pathogenic behavior between both serovars. We performed a quantitative proteomic comparative analysis between one clinical isolate of each serovar grown in vitro under gut mimicking conditions (GMC). Compared to S. Enteritidis, the S. Dublin proteome was enriched in proteins linked to response to several stress conditions, such as those encountered during host infection, as well as to virulence. The S. Enteritidis proteome contained proteins related to central anaerobic metabolism pathways that were undetected in S. Dublin. Similar differences were also found at the transcriptional level, as mRNA levels correlated with proteomic results for 17 of the 20 genes tested in 4 natural isolates of each serovar grown in GMC. This work reveals proteomic differences between two Salmonella serovars with markedly different invasive and host-range characteristics, grown in an infection relevant condition, which were not evident in previous comparative genomic analyses.
