Jagadeesan, Sakthimala et al. (2015) International Worm Meeting "Genome-wide screen identifies genes involved in gut immunity and homeostasis in C. elegans."

Hakkim, Abdul, Osmani, Aniqa, Jagadeesan, Sakthimala, LABED, sid ahmed, Ismail, Nidha, Ausubel, Fred

[International Worm Meeting, 2015]

Gut mucosal immunity plays a pivotal role in pathogen resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans. The mucosal barrier that is continuously exposed to pathogens and gut microbiota needs to identify and elicit an immune response only to invading pathogens but not to innocuous bacteria. Once, pathogens are detected and killed, it is also essential to resolve the epithelial damage caused by both infection and immune signaling. In humans, the lack of resolution often leads to chronic inflammation related diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases.C. elegans intestinal epithelial cells have similar anatomical features as their mammalian counterparts. Additionally, ~50% of C. elegans genes are homologous to human genes. Although, studies have shown that C. elegans employs evolutionarily conserved immune signaling pathways, not much is known about how pathogens are perceived and epithelial damage resolved by the host. To address this question, we developed an automated high-throughput genome wide screening platform to identify genes necessary for gut immunity and resolution. This led to the identification of both known as well as novel class of genes that are essential for mucosal immunity and healing.