Dissection of the in vitro developmental program of Hammondia hammondi reveals a link between stress sensitivity and life cycle flexibility in Toxoplasma gondii.

ABSTRACT: Most eukaryotic parasites are obligately heteroxenous, requiring sequential infection of different host species in order to survive. Toxoplasma gondii is a rare exception to this rule, having a uniquely facultative heteroxenous life cycle. To understand the origins of this phenomenon, we compared development and stress responses in T. gondii to those of its its obligately heteroxenous relative, Hammondia hammondi and have identified multiple H. hammondi growth states that are distinct from those in T. gondii. Of these, the most dramatic difference was that H. hammondi was refractory to stressors that robustly induce cyst formation in T. gondii, and this was reflected most dramatically in its unchanging transcriptome after stress exposure. We

SUBMITTER: Sokol SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5963921 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature