The host-pathogen interactions in the Caenorhabditis elegans animal model: the role of glycosylation and a tool to screen for probiotic bacteria.
Glycosylation is a key modification of proteins and lipids and it is involved in most intermolecular and intercellular interactions. Glycans play a variety of structural and functional roles in membrane and secreted proteins. During the course of an infection, bacterial cell surface play a critical role in the adherence to host tissues mediating interactions with the host environment and promoting colonization. Glycoconiugates are complex dynamic structures that can constantly change in response to different situations.
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a simple model to study host-microrganism interaction, thanks to several advantages, among them the RNA interference tool leading to a rapid targeted investigation of gene function.
In this project C.elegans will be used to understand the role of glycosylation-related proteins in host-pathogen interactions and as useful model for mechanistic studies to exploit probiotic bacteria isolated from different substrates and to evaluate probiotic effects on nematodes physiology in glycosylation mutants. To this aim the role of the Ca2+-ATPase, encoded by pmr-1 gene in C.elegans glycosylation processes and in response to pathogens will be investigated. Then, nematode will be use to preselect probiotic bacteria, after that the efficacy of probiotics will be evaluate after administration on glycosylation mutants, to measure the response of worms to pathogen infection.