Nematode-Bacterium Symbioses—Cooperation and Conflict Revealed in the "Omics" Age
Abstract
Nematodes are ubiquitous organisms that have a significant global impact on ecosystems, economies, agriculture, and human health. The applied importance of nematodes and the experimental tractability of many species have promoted their use as models in various research areas, including developmental biology, evolutionary biology, ecology, and animal-bacterium interactions. Nematodes are particularly well suited for the investigation of host associations with bacteria because all nematodes have interacted with bacteria during their evolutionary history and engage in a variety of association types. Interactions between nematodes and bacteria can be positive (mutualistic) or negative (pathogenic/parasitic) and may be transient or stably maintained (symbiotic). Furthermore, since many mechanistic aspects of nematode-bacterium interactions are conserved, their study can provide broader insights into other types of associations, including those relevant to human diseases. Recently, genome-scale studies have been applied to diverse nematode-bacterial interactions and have helped reveal mechanisms of communication and exchange between the associated partners. In addition to providing specific information about the system under investigation, these studies also have helped inform our understanding of genome evolution, mutualism, and innate immunity. In this review we discuss the importance and diversity of nematodes, "omics"' studies in nematode-bacterial systems, and the wider implications of the findings.
Additional Information
© 2012 Marine Biological Laboratory. Received 24 January 2012; accepted 24 May 2012. Discussions relevant to this paper were facilitated by the NEMASYM (Nematode-Bacterium Symbioses) Research Coordination Network (NSF- IOS 0840932 to SPS), which was also used to support publication costs. ARD was supported by a United States Public Health Service Training Grant (T32GM07616). KEM was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award T32 AI55397. JMF and BES are supported by New England Biolabs, Inc. PWS is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HGB was supported by NSF (IOS-0920631 and IOS-0950873). SB is very grateful to Mark Blaxter and Stephen Bridgett for sequencing, assembling, and making publicly available the Laxus oneistus transcriptome. SB is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) grant P224701.Attached Files
Accepted Version - nihms414070.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC3508788
- Eprint ID
- 35277
- DOI
- 10.1086/BBLv223n1p85
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121105-085733081
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- T32GM07616
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- T32 AI55397
- New England Biolabs, Inc.
- NSF
- IOS-0920631
- NSF
- IOS-0950873
- FWF Der Wissenschaftsfonds
- P224701
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
- Created
-
2012-11-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field