The Lyme Disease agent co-opts adiponectin receptor-mediated signaling in its arthropod vector
- Yale University, United States
- Yale University School of Medicine, United States
- University of Maryland, United States
Abstract
Adiponectin-mediated pathways contribute to mammalian homeostasis; however, little is known about adiponectin and adiponectin receptor signaling in arthropods. In this study, we demonstrate that Ixodes scapularis ticks have an adiponectin receptor-like protein (ISARL) but lack adiponectin - suggesting activation by alternative pathways. ISARL expression is significantly upregulated in the tick gut after Borrelia burgdorferi infection suggesting that ISARL-signaling may be co-opted by the Lyme disease agent. Consistent with this, RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated silencing of ISARL significantly reduced the B. burgdorferi burden in the tick. RNA-seq-based transcriptomics and RNAi assays demonstrate that ISARL-mediated phospholipid metabolism by phosphatidylserine synthase I is associated with B. burgdorferi survival. Furthermore, the tick complement C1q-like protein 3 interacts with ISARL, and B. burgdorferi facilitates this process. This study identifies a new tick metabolic pathway that is connected to the life cycle of the Lyme disease spirochete.
Data availability
The RNA-seq data are available in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository at the National Center for Biotechnology Information under the accession number: GSE169293.
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The Lyme Disease agent co-opts adiponectin receptor-mediated signaling in its arthropod vectorNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE169293.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (AI126033)
- Erol Fikrig
National Institutes of Health (AI138949)
- Erol Fikrig
Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation
- Erol Fikrig
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Animal care and housing were performed according to the Guide for the Care and Use of laboratory Animals of National Institutes of Health, USA. All protocols in this study were approved by the Yale University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (YUIACUC) (approval number 2018-07941).
Copyright
© 2021, Tang et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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The Lyme Disease agent co-opts adiponectin receptor-mediated signaling in its arthropod vector
eLife 10:e72568.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72568
Further reading
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