Consumption of Oleic Acid During Matriphagy in Free-Living Nematodes Alleviates the Toxic Effects of the Bacterial Metabolite Violacein.

ABSTRACT: Maternal behaviors benefit the survival of young, contributing directly to the mother's reproductive fitness. An extreme form of this is seen in matriphagy, when a mother performs the ultimate sacrifice and offers her body as a meal for her young. Whether matriphagy offers only a single energy-rich meal or another possible benefit to the young is unknown. Here, we characterized the toxicity of a bacterial secondary metabolite, namely, violacein, in Caenorhabditis elegans and found it is not only toxic towards adults, but also arrests growth and development of C. elegans larvae. To counteract this, C. elegans resorted to matriphagy, with the mothers holding their eggs within their bodies and hatching the young larvae internally, which eventually led to the mothers' death. This violacein-ind

SUBMITTER: Yoon KH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7229185 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature