Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia

The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis protects its hosts from a range of pathogens by limiting their ability to form infections inside the insect. This “pathogen blocking” could be explained by innate immune priming by the symbiont, competition for host-derived resources between pathogens a...

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Main Authors:	Caragata, Eric P., Rancès, Edwige, Hedges, Lauren M., Gofton, Alexander W., Johnson, Karyn N., O'Neill, Scott L., McGraw, Elizabeth A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694857/

id	pubmed-3694857
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-36948572013-07-03 Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia Caragata, Eric P. Rancès, Edwige Hedges, Lauren M. Gofton, Alexander W. Johnson, Karyn N. O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A. Research Article The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis protects its hosts from a range of pathogens by limiting their ability to form infections inside the insect. This “pathogen blocking” could be explained by innate immune priming by the symbiont, competition for host-derived resources between pathogens and Wolbachia, or the direct modification of the cell or cellular environment by Wolbachia. Recent comparative work in Drosophila and the mosquito Aedes aegypti has shown that an immune response is not required for pathogen blocking, implying that there must be an additional component to the mechanism. Here we have examined the involvement of cholesterol in pathogen blocking using a system of dietary manipulation in Drosophila melanogaster in combination with challenge by Drosophila C virus (DCV), a common fly pathogen. We observed that flies reared on cholesterol-enriched diets infected with the Wolbachia strains wMelPop and wMelCS exhibited reduced pathogen blocking, with viral-induced mortality occurring 2–5 days earlier than flies reared on Standard diet. This shift toward greater virulence in the presence of cholesterol also corresponded to higher viral copy numbers in the host. Interestingly, an increase in dietary cholesterol did not have an effect on Wolbachia density except in one case, but this did not directly affect the strength of pathogen blocking. Our results indicate that host cholesterol levels are involved with the ability of Wolbachia-infected flies to resist DCV infections, suggesting that cholesterol contributes to the underlying mechanism of pathogen blocking. Public Library of Science 2013-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3694857/ /pubmed/23825950 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1003459 Text en © 2013 Caragata et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Caragata, Eric P. Rancès, Edwige Hedges, Lauren M. Gofton, Alexander W. Johnson, Karyn N. O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A.
spellingShingle	Caragata, Eric P. Rancès, Edwige Hedges, Lauren M. Gofton, Alexander W. Johnson, Karyn N. O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A. Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
author_facet	Caragata, Eric P. Rancès, Edwige Hedges, Lauren M. Gofton, Alexander W. Johnson, Karyn N. O'Neill, Scott L. McGraw, Elizabeth A.
author_sort	Caragata, Eric P.
title	Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
title_short	Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
title_full	Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
title_fullStr	Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
title_full_unstemmed	Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia
title_sort	dietary cholesterol modulates pathogen blocking by wolbachia
description	The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis protects its hosts from a range of pathogens by limiting their ability to form infections inside the insect. This “pathogen blocking” could be explained by innate immune priming by the symbiont, competition for host-derived resources between pathogens and Wolbachia, or the direct modification of the cell or cellular environment by Wolbachia. Recent comparative work in Drosophila and the mosquito Aedes aegypti has shown that an immune response is not required for pathogen blocking, implying that there must be an additional component to the mechanism. Here we have examined the involvement of cholesterol in pathogen blocking using a system of dietary manipulation in Drosophila melanogaster in combination with challenge by Drosophila C virus (DCV), a common fly pathogen. We observed that flies reared on cholesterol-enriched diets infected with the Wolbachia strains wMelPop and wMelCS exhibited reduced pathogen blocking, with viral-induced mortality occurring 2–5 days earlier than flies reared on Standard diet. This shift toward greater virulence in the presence of cholesterol also corresponded to higher viral copy numbers in the host. Interestingly, an increase in dietary cholesterol did not have an effect on Wolbachia density except in one case, but this did not directly affect the strength of pathogen blocking. Our results indicate that host cholesterol levels are involved with the ability of Wolbachia-infected flies to resist DCV infections, suggesting that cholesterol contributes to the underlying mechanism of pathogen blocking.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694857/
_version_	1611990096397991936

Dietary Cholesterol Modulates Pathogen Blocking by Wolbachia

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