Identification of overexpressed genes in Sodalis glossinidius inhabiting trypanosome-infected self-cured tsetse flies

Illiassou Hamidou Soumana (1) , Bernadette Tchicaya (1) , Béatrice B. Loriod (2) , Pascal Rihet (2) , Anne Geiger (1)

1 UMR INTERTRYP - Interactions hôtes-vecteurs-parasites-environnement dans les maladies tropicales négligées dues aux trypanosomatides
2 TAGC - Technologies avancées pour le génôme et la clinique

Sodalisglossinidius,oneofthethreetsetseflymaternallyinheritedsymbionts,waspreviouslyshowntofavorflyinfectionbytrypanosomes,theparasitescausinghumansleepingsickness.Amongapopulationoffliestakingatrypanosome-infectedbloodmeal,onlyafewindividualswillacquiretheparasite;theotherswillescapeinfectionandbeconsideredasrefractorytotrypanosomeinfection.TheaimoftheworkwastoinvestigatewhetherflyrefractorinesscouldbeassociatedwithspecificSodalisgeneexpression.ThetranscriptomeofS.glossinidiusharboredbyfliesthatwerefedeitherwithanon-infectedbloodmeal(control)orwithatrypanosome-infectedmealbutthatdidnotdevelopinfectionwereanalyzed,usingmicroarraytechnology,andcompared.Theanalysisusingthemicroarrayprocedureyielded17genesthatwerefoundtohaveasignificantdifferentialexpressionbetweenthetwogroups.Interestingly,allthesegeneswereoverexpressedinself-cured(refractory)flies.Furtheranalysisoffunctionalannotationofthesegenesindicatedthatmostassociatedbiologicalprocesstermswererelatedtometabolicandbiosyntheticprocessesaswellastooxido-reductionmechanisms.Theseresultsevidencetheoccurrenceofmolecularcrosstalkbetweenthedifferentpartners,inducedbythepassageofthetrypanosomesthroughthefly’sguteventhoughtheparasiteswereunabletoestablishinthegutandtodevelopapermanentinfection.

Keywords: Self-cured tsetse flies; Control flies; Tripartite interactions; Sleeping sickness; Tsetse-symbiont-trypanosomes

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Animal biology; Veterinary medicine and animal Health; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Genetics; Populations and Evolution [q-bio.PE]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Parasitology

Illiassou Hamidou Soumana, Bernadette Tchicaya, Béatrice B. Loriod, Pascal Rihet, Anne Geiger. Identification of overexpressed genes in Sodalis glossinidius inhabiting trypanosome-infected self-cured tsetse flies. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2014, 5, pp.255. ⟨10.3389/fmicb.2014.00255⟩. ⟨hal-01612141⟩