鳞翅目昆虫病原微孢子虫研究进展

微孢子虫广泛存在于鳞翅目昆虫中,是一类重要的病原微生物。微孢子虫病一方面影响野外昆虫种群的自然平衡,另一方面对家蚕、柞蚕等经济和资源昆虫造成了严重的危害。微孢子虫分子生物学研究基础相对薄弱,再加上微孢子虫表面坚厚的孢壁,无疑增加了研究难度。随着核酸、蛋白质等生物大分子分离制备方法和高通量测序技术的不断更新发展,基于各种组学(Omics)研究微孢子虫的工作方兴未艾,并且有了一些重要的发现。本文综述了微孢子虫与鳞翅目昆虫寄主的相互作用及寄生于鳞翅目昆虫的病原微孢子虫基因组、转录组和蛋白质组进展情况,以期为微孢子虫的深入研究提供参考。这些昆虫微生物研究将为鳞翅目害虫生物防治提供新的思路,并对家蚕等经济昆虫微粒子病的诊断、防控及治疗产生积极影响。     

Using average nucleotide identity (ANI) to evaluate microsporidia species boundaries based on their genetic relatedness

Microsporidia are obligatory intracellular parasites related to fungi and since their discovery their classification and origin has been controversial due to their unique morphology. Early taxonomic studies of microsporidia were based on ultrastructural spore features, characteristics of their life cycle and transmission modes. However, taxonomy and phylogeny based solely on these characteristics can be misleading. SSU rRNA is a traditional marker used in taxonomical classifications, but the power of SSU rRNA to resolve phylogenetic relationships between microsporidia is considered weak at the species level, as it may not show enough variation to distinguish closely related species. Overall genome relatedness indices (OGRI), such as average nucleotide identity (ANI), allows fast and easy-to-implement comparative measurements between genomes to assess species boundaries in prokaryotes, with a 95% cutoff value for grouping genomes of the same species. Due to the increasing availability of complete genomes, metrics of genome relatedness have been applied for eukaryotic microbes taxonomy such as microsporidia. However, the distribution of ANI values and cutoff values for species delimitation have not yet been fully tested in microsporidia. In this study we examined the distribution of ANI values for 65 publicly available microsporidian genomes and tested whether the 95% cutoff value is a good estimation for circumscribing species based on their genetic relatedness.     

Draft genome sequence of the Daphnia pathogen Octosporea bayeri: insights into the gene content of a large microsporidian genome and a model for host-parasite interactions

Background  

The highly compacted 2.9-Mb genome of Encephalitozoon cuniculi placed the microsporidia in the spotlight, encoding a mere 2,000 proteins and a highly reduced suite of biochemical pathways. This extreme level of reduction is not universal across the microsporidia, with genomes known to vary up to sixfold in size, suggesting that some genomes may harbor a gene content that is not as reduced as that of Enc. cuniculi. In this study, we present an in-depth survey of the large genome of Octosporea bayeri, a pathogen of Daphnia magna, with an estimated genome size of 24 Mb, in order to shed light on the organization and content of a large microsporidian genome.     

Effects of microsporjdia on the striated parietal muscle of Rhynchosciara angelae (Diptera: Sciaridae)

Nuclear hypertrophy and RNA synthesis were studied in the multinucleated striated muscle of Rhynchosciara angelae infected by the microsporidia Thelohania sp. Infection varied from fibers with few microsporidian cells to fibers completely occupied by the infective agent. Usually, the terminal portions of the fibers are free of microsporidia. The host-cell nuclei located in these regions (OM nuclei) are less affected than the nuclei of the same fiber that are completely surrounded by the cells of the parasite (IM). There is a correlation between the volume attained by the OM nuclei and their location in the fiber: the closer the nuclei to the microsporidia the higher the nuclear hypertrophy. Despite the errors peculiar to the autoradiography, grain counting showed that the nuclei of infected fibers are more active in the incorporation of RNA precursor than the normal noninfected fibers. Two additive mechanisms are suggested through which the microsporidia could influence the host-cell nucleus: (1) enhancement of the metabolism induced by juvenile hormone and (2) a further increase in the overall metabolism to repair the disruption imposed by the microsporidian development.     

The ins and outs of host‐microsporidia interactions during invasion,proliferation and exit

Microsporidia are a large group of fungal‐related obligate intracellular parasites. They are responsible for infections in humans as well as in agriculturally and environmentally important animals. Although microsporidia are abundant in nature, many of the molecular mechanisms employed during infection have remained enigmatic. In this review, we highlight recent work showing how microsporidia invade, proliferate and exit from host cells. During invasion, microsporidia use spore wall and polar tube proteins to interact with host receptors and adhere to the host cell surface. In turn, the host has multiple defence mechanisms to prevent and eliminate these infections. Microsporidia encode numerous transporters and steal host nutrients to facilitate proliferation within host cells. They also encode many secreted proteins which may modulate host metabolism and inhibit host cell defence mechanisms. Spores exit the host in a non‐lytic manner that is dependent on host actin and endocytic recycling proteins. Together, this work provides a fuller picture of the mechanisms that these fascinating organisms use to infect their hosts.     

Functional and evolutionary analysis of a eukaryotic parasitic genome

The DNA sequences of the 11 linear chromosomes of the approximately 2.9 Mbp genome of Encephalitozoon cuniculi, an obligate intracellular parasite of mammals, include approximately 2000 putative protein-coding genes. The compactness of this genome is associated with the length reduction of various genes. Essential functions are dependent on a minimal set of genes. Phylogenetic analysis supports the hypotheses that microsporidia are related to fungi and have retained a mitochondrion-derived organelle, the mitosome.     

线粒体型蛋白frataxin在家蚕微孢子虫中的鉴定与分析

[目的]Frataxin是铁硫簇相关蛋白,在线粒体代谢中起着重要作用.分析家蚕微孢子中该蛋白的结构特征,系统进化关系以及在孢子体内的转录翻译活性.[方法]基于家蚕微孢子全基因组序列,同源序列搜索获得该基因序列.进行蛋白二级结构比较,近缘物种共线性特征分析及系统进化树构建.此外构建pGEX-4T-1-Nbfra原核重组表达载体,转化E coli BL21(DE3)进行目的蛋白表达纯化,以此为抗原免疫小鼠,制备抗体,并与家蚕微孢子总蛋白进行Western免疫杂交.[结果]Nbfra蛋白缺乏进入线粒体的信号序列,功能区缺乏部分α-螺旋;frataxin基因在不同微孢子基因组中的分布具有共线性特征,表明其在基因组进化中非常保守.系统进化分析显示微孢子形成独立进化支,并且与高等真核生物近缘,说明微孢子在进化地位上比其它原虫更加高等,支持了微孢子虫是真菌的姊妹枝的进化地位假说.[结论]免疫杂交结果表明Nbfra基因家蚕微孢子虫中能正常表达与翻译.本研究为微孢子的分类地位及线体假说提供了重要的补充依据.     

Microsporidia: emerging advances in understanding the basic biology of these unique organisms

Microsporidia are long-known parasites of a wide variety of invertebrate and vertebrate hosts. The emergence of these obligate intracellular organisms as important opportunistic pathogens during the AIDS pandemic and the discovery of new species in humans renewed interest in this unique group of organisms. This review summarises recent advances in the field of molecular biology of microsporidia which (i) contributed to the understanding of the natural origin of human-infecting microsporidia, (ii) revealed unique genetic features of their dramatically reduced genome and (iii) resulted in the correction of their phylogenetic placement among eukaryotes from primitive protozoans to highly evolved organisms related to fungi. Microsporidia might serve as new intracellular model organisms in the future given that gene transfer systems will be developed.     

Protein glycosylation in the spores of the microsporidia Paranosema (Antonospora) grylli

Long adaptation of microsporidia, a large group of fungi-related protozoa, to intracellular lifestyle has resulted in drastic minimization of a parasite cell. Thus, diversity of carbohydrates in microsporidia glycoproteins and proteoglycans is expected to be restricted by O-linked manno-oligosaccharides because three genes involved in O-mannosylation of proteins and no components of N-linked glycosylation machinery were found in genome of human pathogen Encephalitozoon cuniculi. In this study we investigated glycosylation of spore proteins of microsporidia Paranosema (Antonospora) grylli infecting crickets Gryllus bimaculatus. Using periodic acid-Shiff reagent staining we have demonstrated that some P. grylli spore proteins are highly-glycosylated. The major polar tube protein (PTP1) of 56 kDa was shown as the most intensively decorated band. The experiments with N-glycosidase F and WGA lectin did not reveal any N-glycosylated proteins in P. grylli spores. At the same time, incubation of major spore wall protein of 40 kDa (p40) with mannose specific lectin GNA resulted in specific binding that was reduced by pretreatment of the protein with mannosidases. Interestingly, in spite of PTP1 glycosylation, polar tube proteins extracted from P. grylli spores were not precipitated by GNA-agarose. Since P. grylli and E. cuniculi are distantly related, our data suggest that dramatic reduction of protein glycosylation machinery is a common feature of microsporidia.     

Phylogenetic Analysis of the Complete Genome Sequence of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Encephalitozoon cuniculi</Emphasis> Supports the Fungal Origin of Microsporidia and Reveals a High Frequency of Fast-Evolving Genes

Microsporidia are unicellular eukaryotes living as obligate intracellular parasites. Lacking mitochondria, they were initially considered as having diverged before the endosymbiosis at the origin of mitochondria. That microsporidia were primitively amitochondriate was first questioned by the discovery of microsporidial sequences homologous to genes encoding mitochondrial proteins and then refuted by the identification of remnants of mitochondria in their cytoplasm. Various molecular phylogenies also cast doubt on the early divergence of microsporidia, these organisms forming a monophyletic group with or within the fungi. The 2001 proteins putatively encoded by the complete genome of Encephalitozoon cuniculi provided powerful data to test this hypothesis. Phylogenetic analysis of 99 proteins selected as adequate phylogenetic markers indicated that the E. cuniculi sequences having the lowest evolutionary rates preferentially clustered with fungal sequences or, more rarely, with both animal and fungal sequences. Because sequences with low evolutionary rates are less sensitive to the long-branch attraction artifact, we concluded that microsporidia are evolutionarily related to fungi. This analysis also allowed comparing the accuracy of several phylogenetic algorithms for a fast-evolving lineage with real rather than simulated sequences.This article contains online supplementary material.Reviewing Editor: Dr. Wen-Hsiung LiSupplementary material is available at     

Evidence from beta-tubulin phylogeny that microsporidia evolved from within the fungi

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasites that were thought to be an ancient eukaryotic lineage based on molecular phylogenies using ribosomal RNA and translation elongation factors. However, this ancient origin of microsporidia has been contested recently, as several other molecular phylogenies suggest that microsporidia are closely related to fungi. Most of the protein trees that place microsporidia with fungi are not well sampled, however, and it is impossible to resolve whether microsporidia evolved from a fungus or from a protistan relative of fungi. We have sequenced beta-tubulins from 3 microsporidia, 4 chytrid fungi, and 12 zygomycete fungi, expanding the representation of beta-tubulin to include all four fungal divisions and a wide diversity of microsporidia. In phylogenetic trees including these new sequences, the overall topology of the fungal beta-tubulins generally matched the expected relationships among the four fungal divisions, although the zygomycetes were polyphyletic in some analyses. The microsporidia consistently fell within this fungal diversification, and not as a sister group to fungi. Overall, beta-tubulin phylogeny suggests that microsporidia evolved from a fungus sometime after the divergence of chytrids. We also found that chytrid alpha- and beta-tubulins are much less divergent than are tubulins from other fungi or microsporidia. In trees in which the only fungal representatives were the chytrids, microsporidia still branched with fungi (i.e., with chytrids), suggesting that the affiliation between microsporidian and fungal tubulins is not an artifact of long-branch attraction.     

Genome profiling implies high genetic diversity in microsporidia isolated from the common cutworm, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Spodoptera litura</Emphasis> (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), in Vietnam

In order to evaluate the potential application of microsporidia as a microbial control agent against lepidopteran insect pests, microsporidian infection in a field population of the common cutworm, Spodoptera litura (Fabricius), was surveyed in vegetable crop fields in Can Tho City, Vietnam, in March 2007. The infection rate of microsporidia was 46.7% (99/212 individuals) in adult S. litura, and 16 samples of infected adults were used to characterize the microsporidia at the molecular level. Analysis of the small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) sequences indicated that microsporidian strains isolated from S. litura were closely related to Nosema bombycis from the silkworm, Bombyx mori (Linnaeus); however, phylogenetic analysis based on genome profiling produced a different result from the SSU rRNA sequences. Temperature gradient gel electrophoresis profiles of 12 microsporidian strains from S. litura were closely related to N. bombycis strains, while the profiles of three microsporidian strains formed a different cluster. The Vietnamese strains did not form a single group, but were classified into at least three groups. These results suggested that the microsporidia isolated from S. litura in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, are genetically diverse.     

Les microsporidies: un regain d'intérêt pour ces curieux parasites

Microsporidia were found to be involved in some diseases of insects (silkworm, bee, pests) and aquaculture pathology. They are important as opportunistic parasites in AIDS patients and are also prevalent in the European population (8 %). The cytological and molecular characterisation of numerous species infecting humans was determined. To obtain an easier diagnosis and more efficient therapy, researches were developed on the genome as well as on the invasive apparatus, which is unique in the living world. Recent, more important insights are the characterisation of polar tube proteins, the evidence for genome plasticity, and the size of haploid genome representing, for some species, the smallest nuclear genomes known so far. The placement of microsporidia in eukaryotic phylogenetic tree is still uncertain. They can be viewed as amitochondrial parasites which lost secondarily their mitochondria, and rDNA 23S or some protein sequences suggest a late origin within the terminal crown. The reduced size of the translation machinery could be a consequence of parasitism.     

Causes and effects of nuclear genome reduction

Eukaryotic nuclear genomes are generally considered to be large and gene-sparse, but extreme reduction has taken place several times, resulting in small genomes with a high gene-density. This process involves losing genes, compacting those that remain, or often both. Recently sequenced nuclear genomes include several that have converged to similar gene-densities by many means: variation in numbers and lengths of genes, intergenic regions and introns all contribute, but not equally in any given genome. Genomes of microsporidia and nucleomorphs have taken compaction much further, and in these hyper-compacted genomes there is evidence that some basic processes such as gene expression might be affected by genome form. In these genomes, normally weak forces might become more significant drivers of genome evolution.     

原生动物基因组转座元件的研究进展

转座元件是一类广泛分布于真核生物的可移动的遗传因子, 可以引起基因重组和变异, 在物种进化及遗传改良中起着重要作用。针对近年来原生动物全基因组序列中大量发现的转座元件, 文章着重比较了转座元件在锥虫、利什曼虫、微孢子虫、变形虫和滴虫基因组序列中的存在种类、分布特征及其功能意义。原生动物转座元件以LINE 和SINE为主, 其次是DNA转座元件和LTR反转座元件, 部分转座元件在高A+T含量区富集, 预示着转座元件与基因组序列A+T含量有着紧密联系。根据不同种微孢子虫基因组之间转座元件的差异, 推测在微孢子虫基因组进化过程中, 至少经历了一次转座元件的丢失事件。最后对转座元件在原生动物寄生虫的进一步研究和应用作了展望。     

Genome-Wide Transcriptional Response of Silkworm (Bombyx mori) to Infection by the Microsporidian Nosema bombycis

Microsporidia have attracted much attention because they infect a variety of species ranging from protists to mammals, including immunocompromised patients with AIDS or cancer. Aside from the study on Nosema ceranae, few works have focused on elucidating the mechanism in host response to microsporidia infection. Nosema bombycis is a pathogen of silkworm pébrine that causes great economic losses to the silkworm industry. Detailed understanding of the host (Bombyx mori) response to infection by N. bombycis is helpful for prevention of this disease. A genome-wide survey of the gene expression profile at 2, 4, 6 and 8 days post-infection by N. bombycis was performed and results showed that 64, 244, 1,328, 1,887 genes were induced, respectively. Up to 124 genes, which are involved in basal metabolism pathways, were modulated. Notably, B. mori genes that play a role in juvenile hormone synthesis and metabolism pathways were induced, suggesting that the host may accumulate JH as a response to infection. Interestingly, N. bombycis can inhibit the silkworm serine protease cascade melanization pathway in hemolymph, which may be due to the secretion of serpins in the microsporidia. N. bombycis also induced up-regulation of several cellular immune factors, in which CTL11 has been suggested to be involved in both spore recognition and immune signal transduction. Microarray and real-time PCR analysis indicated the activation of silkworm Toll and JAK/STAT pathways. The notable up-regulation of antimicrobial peptides, including gloverins, lebocins and moricins, strongly indicated that antimicrobial peptide defense mechanisms were triggered to resist the invasive microsporidia. An analysis of N. bombycis-specific response factors suggested their important roles in anti-microsporidia defense. Overall, this study primarily provides insight into the potential molecular mechanisms for the host-parasite interaction between B. mori and N. bombycis and may provide a foundation for further work on host-parasite interaction between insects and microsporidia.