Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to David G Biron.
As prisoners in their living habitat, parasites should be vulnerable to destruction by the predators of their hosts. But we show here that the parasitic gordian worm Paragordius tricuspidatus is able to escape not only from its insect host after ingestion by a fish or frog but also from the digestive tract of the predator. This remarkable tactic enables the worm to continue its life cycle.
Examples of behavioural manipulation by parasites are numerous, but the processes underlying these changes are not well characterized. From an evolutionary point of view, behavioural changes in infected hosts have often been interpreted as illustrations of the extended phenotype concept, in which genes in one organism (the parasite) have phenotypic effects on another organism (the host). Here, we approach the problem differently, suggesting that hosts, by cooperating with manipulative parasites rather than resisting them, might mitigate fitness costs associated with manipulation. By imposing extra fitness costs on their hosts in the absence of compliance, parasites theoretically have the potential to select for cooperative behaviour by their hosts. Although this 'mafia-like' strategy remains poorly documented, we believe that it has substantial potential to resolve issues specific to the evolution of behavioural alterations induced by parasites.
Proteomics research has developed until recently in a relative isolation from other fast-moving disciplines such as ecology and evolution. This is unfortunate since applying proteomics to these disciplines has apparently the potential to open new perspectives. The huge majority of species indeed exhibit over their entire geographic range a metapopulation structure, occupying habitats that are fragmented and heterogeneous in space and/or through time. Traditionally, population genetics is the main tool used to studying metatopulations, as it describes the spatial structure of populations and the level of gene flow between them. In this Viewpoint, we present the reasons why we think that proteomics, because of the level of integration it promotes, has the potential to resolve interesting issues specific to metapopulation biology and adaptive processes.
The elucidation of the entire genomic sequence of various organisms, from viruses to complex metazoans, most recently man, is undoubtedly the greatest triumph of molecular biology since the discovery of the DNA double helix. Over the past two decades, the focus of molecular biology has gradually moved from genomes to proteomes, the intention being to discover the functions of the genes themselves. The postgenomic era stimulated the development of new techniques (e.g. 2-DE and MS) and bioinformatics tools to identify the functions, reactions, interactions and location of the gene products in tissues and/or cells of living organisms. Both 2-DE and MS have been very successfully employed to identify proteins involved in biological phenomena (e.g. immunity, cancer, host-parasite interactions, etc.), although recently, several papers have emphasised the pitfalls of 2-DE experiments, especially in relation to experimental design, poor statistical treatment and the high rate of 'false positive' results with regard to protein identification. In the light of these perceived problems, we review the advantages and misuses of bioinformatics tools - from realisation of 2-DE gels to the identification of candidate protein spots - and suggest some useful avenues to improve the quality of 2-DE experiments. In addition, we present key steps which, in our view, need to be to taken into consideration during such analyses. Lastly, we present novel biological entities named 'interactomes', and the bioinformatics tools developed to analyse the large protein-protein interaction networks they form, along with several new perspectives of the field.
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The proteome of most parasite species is currently unknown. Hairworms (Nematomorpha), 300 species distributed around the world, are parasitic in arthropods (mainly terrestrial species) when juveniles, but they are free-living in aquatic environments when adult. Most aspects of their systematics and biology are currently unknown. The aim of this paper was (i) to report a novel and reproducible protocol for the analysis of the proteome of hairworms using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DGE) and mass spectrometry (matrix laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF)) and (ii) to determine the level of proteomic divergence between two sympatric but taxonomically unrelated nematomorph species in the adult stage, Paragordius tricuspidatus Dufour (Nematomorpha, Gordiidae) and Spinochordodes tellinii Camerano (Nematomorpha, Gordiidae). In total, 689 protein spots were observed for P. tricuspidatus, 575 for S. tellinii. Only 36.2% spots were shared between the two species. Quantitative analysis of the proteins which are common to both parasite species reveals substantial differences in the pattern of protein expression. These results suggest a rapid evolutionary divergence between these two nematomorph families. Also, to test the value of our MALDI-TOF protocol, we used Actin-2 (Act-2), a protein highly conserved in the course of evolution. Peptide mass fingerprint (PMF) data obtained for Act-2 of P. tricuspidatus and S. tellinii suggest a very high homology with Act-2 of different worms species belonging to the Bilateria phylum (Annelida and Nematoda) and more specifically to Lumbricus terrestris (Annelida, Lumbricidae) and Caenorhabditis elegans (Nematoda, Rhabditidae). We discuss our results in relationship with current ideas concerning the use of proteomics in systematics.
Many parasitologists are betting heavily on proteomic studies to explain biochemical host-parasite interactions and, thus, to contribute to disease control. However, many "parasitoproteomic" studies are performed with powerful techniques but without a conceptual approach to determine whether the host genomic responses during a parasite infection represent a nonspecific response that might be induced by any parasite or any other stress. In this article, a new conceptual approach, based on evolutionary concepts of immune responses of a host to a parasite, is suggested for parasitologists to study the host proteome reaction after parasite invasion. Also, this new conceptual approach can be used to study other host-parasite interactions such as behavioral manipulation.
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