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Resources » Paper

Darby C et al. (1995) International C. elegans Meeting "Modeling bacterial pathogenesis with C. elegans: egl-9 mutants are resistant to paralysis by Pseudomonas aeruginosa"

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  • Comments on Darby C et al. (1995) International C. elegans Meeting "Modeling bacterial pathogenesis with C. elegans: egl-9 mutants are resistant to paralysis by Pseudomonas aeruginosa" (0)

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    Publication type:
    Meeting_abstract
    WormBase ID:
    WBPaper00021723

    Darby C, Thomas JH, & Manoil C (1995). Modeling bacterial pathogenesis with C. elegans: egl-9 mutants are resistant to paralysis by Pseudomonas aeruginosa presented in International C. elegans Meeting. Unpublished information; cite only with author permission.

    Genetically tractable model hosts are lacking for the study of bacterial pathogenesis. To fill this void, we have begun development of a C. elegans model for study of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. When put on a lawn of these bacteria, nematodes cease pumping almost immediately and become sluggish. Motility decreases gradually over several hours, after which animals are completely paralyzed and apparently dead. The terminal phenotype in some animals includes hypercontraction of the nose and body muscles, strongly suggesting a neuromuscular effect. In a screen of 8,000 haploid nematode genomes, we isolated two mutants that are strongly resistant to the paralysis. The mutations, sa307 and sa330, are recessive, failed to complement, and mapped to chromosome V between unc-42 and sma-1. Because sa307 homozygotes are moderately Egl, we tested known Egl mutations in the interval and found that egl-9(n586) is resistant to paralysis and is allelic to sa307 and sa330. The bacterial toxin, as yet unidentified, is diffusible and heat labile. Analysis of bacterial mutants indicated that toxin production requires LasR protein, a positive regulator of several P. aeruginosa virulence factors. By obtaining both nematode and bacterial mutants that affect the paralysis, we have demonstrated that genetic analysis is possible on both organisms in a two-species interaction.


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