TY - JOUR
T1 - Specialist and generalist fungal parasites induce distinct biochemical changes in the mandible muscles of their host
AU - Zheng, Shanshan
AU - Loreto, Raquel
AU - Smith, Philip
AU - Patterson, Andrew
AU - Hughes, David
AU - Wang, Liande
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work was supported by China Scholarship Council and also funded by Penn State to David Hughes. RGL was funded by CAPES-Brazil (grant 6203–10−8) and the Pennsylvania State University.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by China Scholarship Council and also funded by Penn State to David Hughes. RGL was funded by CAPES-Brazil (grant 6203-10-8) and the Pennsylvania State University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2019/9/2
Y1 - 2019/9/2
N2 - Some parasites have evolved the ability to adaptively manipulate host behavior. One notable example is the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato, which has evolved the ability to alter the behavior of ants in ways that enable fungal transmission and lifecycle completion. Because host mandibles are affected by the fungi, wefocused on understanding changes in the metabolites of muscles during behavioral modification. We used High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass/Mass (HPLC-MS/MS) to detect the metabolite difference between controls and O. unilateralis-infected ants. There was a significant difference between the global metabolome of O. unilateralis-infected ants and healthy ants, while there was no significant difference between the Beauveria bassiana treatment ants group compared to the healthy ants. A total of 31 and 16 of metabolites were putatively identified from comparisons of healthy ants with O. unilateralis-infected ants and comparisons of B. bassiana with O. unilateralis-infected samples, respectively. This result indicates that the concentrations of sugars, purines, ergothioneine, and hypoxanthine were significantly increased in O. unilateralis-infected ants in comparison to healthy ants and B. bassiana-infected ants. This study provides a comprehensive metabolic approach for understanding the interactions, at the level of host muscles, between healthy ants and fungal parasites.
AB - Some parasites have evolved the ability to adaptively manipulate host behavior. One notable example is the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato, which has evolved the ability to alter the behavior of ants in ways that enable fungal transmission and lifecycle completion. Because host mandibles are affected by the fungi, wefocused on understanding changes in the metabolites of muscles during behavioral modification. We used High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass/Mass (HPLC-MS/MS) to detect the metabolite difference between controls and O. unilateralis-infected ants. There was a significant difference between the global metabolome of O. unilateralis-infected ants and healthy ants, while there was no significant difference between the Beauveria bassiana treatment ants group compared to the healthy ants. A total of 31 and 16 of metabolites were putatively identified from comparisons of healthy ants with O. unilateralis-infected ants and comparisons of B. bassiana with O. unilateralis-infected samples, respectively. This result indicates that the concentrations of sugars, purines, ergothioneine, and hypoxanthine were significantly increased in O. unilateralis-infected ants in comparison to healthy ants and B. bassiana-infected ants. This study provides a comprehensive metabolic approach for understanding the interactions, at the level of host muscles, between healthy ants and fungal parasites.
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U2 - 10.3390/ijms20184589
DO - 10.3390/ijms20184589
M3 - Article
C2 - 31533250
AN - SCOPUS:85072388159
SN - 1661-6596
VL - 20
JO - International journal of molecular sciences
JF - International journal of molecular sciences
IS - 18
M1 - 4589
ER -