Genetics of nematode development and innate immunity

更好地了解发育过程、对感染应激的反应和细菌感染的防御机制都是医学进步的核心。本计画的目的是在一个简单且易于处理的系统中，即微小的线虫C。elegans，它可以被一种叫做M.喜食草我们有兴趣研究这个系统中与医学相关的问题，例如病原菌如何感染宿主，宿主如何能够检测细菌并激活防御反应，以及使用什么样的分子来对抗感染。线虫不能产生抗体，因此它们可能使用与哺乳动物不同的免疫力。分枝嗜热菌也会引起感染蠕虫的形状变化，这使得研究发育生物学中的几个问题成为可能。最后，感染提供了一种新的方法来研究线虫的表面，这是相关的寄生线虫的控制，其中许多是医学或经济上重要的。

Better understanding of developmental processes, responses to infectious stress and mechanisms of defense against bacterial infection are all central to medical progress. This project aims to investigate these processes in a simple and very tractable system, the tiny nematode worm C. elegans, which can be infected by a nematode-specific bacterium called M. nematophilum. We are interested in studying medically relevant questions in this system, such as how pathogenic bacteria are able to infect their hosts, how the host is able to detect bacteria and activate defensive reactions, and what kinds of molecules are used to combat infection. Nematodes cannot make antibodies, so they may use different kinds of immunity from mammals. The M. nematophilum bacterium also causes shape change in infected worms, allowing investigation of several questions in developmental biology. Lastly, the infection provides a new way to study the surface of nematodes, which is relevant to the control of parasitic nematodes, many of which are medically or economically important.