A pair of recently published studies examining immune response in C. elegans reveal broad implications for understanding pathogen detection in higher animals and evolutionary origins of immunity itself.
The research, co-authored by MD/PhD student Samantha “Sammy” Tse-Kang and Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, professor of medicine, uncovered a mechanism of effector-triggered immunity in animals, in which host cells detect infection by sensing the harmful effects of a pathogen rather than simply the presence of a dangerous microbe. The new research details the mechanism of an immune regulator whose role in pathogen sensing is conserved across all organisms.
The papers, which were published simultaneously in the journals Immunity and Cell Reports on Sept. 18, examine a type of immune regulator called SARM, which is required for immune defenses in plants and bacteria. It was not previously known whether these proteins have a role in pathogen sensing in animals. Tse-Kang and her colleagues showed that the SARM homolog in C. elegans is specifically expressed on a cellular compartment in intestinal cells that enables it to respond to pathogen-induced damage to the host and activate protective immune defenses.
