Genetics of nematode development and innate immunity

更好地了解发育过程、对感染应激的反应以及抵御细菌感染的机制都是医学进步的核心。这个项目的目的是在一个简单而非常容易驯化的系统中研究这些过程，这种微小的线虫蠕虫可以被一种名为嗜线虫的线虫特异性细菌感染。我们有兴趣研究这个系统中与医学相关的问题，例如病原菌如何能够感染宿主，宿主如何能够检测细菌并激活防御反应，以及哪些分子被用来对抗感染。线虫不能产生抗体，因此它们可能使用哺乳动物的不同种类的免疫力。线虫分枝杆菌还会引起受感染蠕虫的形状变化，从而可以研究发育生物学中的几个问题。最后，这种感染为研究线虫表面提供了一种新的途径，这与寄生线虫的控制有关，其中许多线虫具有重要的医学或经济意义。

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.