Host behaviour alteration by its parasite: from brain gene expression to functional test.

ABSTRACT: Many parasites with complex life cycles modify their intermediate hosts' behaviour, presumably to increase transmission to their final host. The threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is an intermediate host in the cestode Schistocephalus solidus life cycle, which ends in an avian host, and shows increased risky behaviours when infected. We studied brain gene expression profiles of sticklebacks infected with S. solidus to determine the proximal causes of these behavioural alterations. We show that infected fish have altered expression levels in genes involved in the inositol pathway. We thus tested the functional implication of this pathway and successfully rescued normal behaviours in infected sticklebacks using lithium exposure. We also show that exposed but

SUBMITTER: Grecias L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7735270 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature