Conservation of Host Cell Death in Response to Bacterial Infection: Carnivores and Other Species

The University of Cambridge Abstract: Some bacterial species readily induce host cell death upon infection. Salmonella is an efficient cell killer that primarily drives inflammasome cleavage of gasdermin D to induce membrane pores and hence kill macrophages. Cell death is critical to control Salmonella infection in vivo (a) and macrophages from many species die in response to infection with this bacterium yet many of the genes central to inflammasome cell death are either altered or absent across different animals (b). This is surprising for what should be critical signaling pathways for host defense and this talk will cover our work in this area and our approaches to these evolutionary differences. For more information see: a. Doerflinger, M., et al. (2020) Flexible Usage and Interconnectivity of Diverse Cell Death Pathways Protect against Intracellular Infection. Immunity doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2020.07.004 b. Digby, Z., et al. (2021) Evolutionary loss of inflammasomes in the Carnivora and implications for the carriage of zoonotic infections. Cell Reports 36, 109614. Doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109614s. For more information on the inflammasome, and on caspase evolution and species distribution: 1. "Identification of Novel Mammalian Caspases Reveals an Important Role of Gene Loss in Shaping the Human Caspase Repertoire" https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/25/5/831/1195498 2. "Cytosolic Recognition of Microbes and Pathogens: Inflammasomes in Action" https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/MMBR.00015-18 3. "Diet modulates the relationship between immune gene expression and functional immune responses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965174818304909 New Focus, New Subgroup Reinhard Laubenbacher University of Florida If you found this video useful, please check out our other videos on computational modeling, infection and immunology: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiEtieOeWbMKh9VcQoinSwODcSZKMTGat Please consider joining our IMAG/MSM WG on Multiscale Modeling and Viral Pandemics: https://www.imagwiki.nibib.nih.gov/content/msm-viral-pandemics-meetings Please also consider joining the Global Alliance for Immune Prediction and Intervention: http://glimprint.org/