CINAR PATHOBACTER

"CIliates as NAtural Reservoir of potentially PATHOgenic BACTERia: an ecological, functional and evolutionary genomic investigation"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'In the last years, Protists (Protozoa) gained a significant attention from the scientific community because of their role as Trojan horses respect to opportunistic pathogens of humans and animals. Although this role is nowadays well established and accepted for some Protists like Acanthamoeba, little is known for other groups of possible hosts. Recently, members of the coordinating unit of Pisa got evidences that many of the natural occurring bacterial symbionts of ciliates have a strong phylogenetic affiliation to human and animal (especially fish) pathogens like Rickettsia (Vannini et al., 2005; Ferrantini et al., 2009; Ferrantini et al., in prep) and Francisella (Schrallhammer et al., in prep.). These observations raised the question whether ciliates may also represent natural reservoirs for potentially pathogenic bacteria especially in tropical regions where the environmental conditions favor microbial growth and fast evolution. Furthermore tropical countries are predicted as the Hot Spot for emerging infectious diseases and zoonosis due to hygienic standards lower than in Western countries and the living together of humans with their farmed animals. Aim of the present project is to set up an international research network that, starting from the collection of novel isolates especially from tropical regions, performs a complete ecological, functional and evolutionary genomic investigation on symbiotic bacteria retrieved from ciliates that shows phylogenetic affinities to pathogenic ones. Units from the proposed network posses expertise that ranges from the traditional morphological investigation to advanced ultrastructure, ecology, functional biology, molecular phylogeny, comparative genomics and postgenomics. Aim of the research network will be to coordinate the research activities of the involved units into joined projects and to transfer know-how to the younger researcher to allow them to re-establish the acquired competences in their home laboratories.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded researchers are studying symbiotic organisms such as bacteria that are present in a group of protozoans called ciliates. Their goal is to investigate their potential danger to human or animal health.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Recent evidence indicates that certain protozoan creatures like Acanthamoeba can harbour microrganisms in a symbiotic relationship. Normally benign, these opportunistic microbes could prove to be pathogenic to humans and animals. For instance, tropical weather conditions, compromised immune systems, poor hygiene and over-crowding could facilitate such undesirable transformations.

The CINAR PATHOBACTER project is an international research network also involving non-European countries. The consortium is characterising symbiotic bacteria living in ciliates that show phylogenetic affinities to pathogenic bacteria. A comprehensive ecological, functional and evolutionary genomic investigation will be carried out in symbiotic organisms, particularly those from tropical regions.

Project members began the systematic sampling of ciliates from many countries including tropical Brazil and India and screened them for bacterial symbionts. The eco-physiological and evolutionary epidemiological studies on ciliates and their symbionts is currently ongoing. Already, the genomic analysis of the bacterial symbiont called Polynucleobacter necessarius is complete. Project outcomes were published in eleven extended publications and more are in preparation.

This joint international collaboration has considerably enhanced research capacity and knowledge exchange. Besides boosting the careers of participating researchers, such networking will also facilitate future related research collaborations on an international scale.

Project activities should identify key factors that facilitate bacterial colonisation in the ciliates and mechanisms through which symbiosis is achieved. Such studies could also reveal the factors relevant to pathogenicity in bacterial symbionts and ciliates. Applications include prediction of pathogenicity where their close proximity to humans and animals can facilitate their transformation into infectious forms deleterious to our health.