Antimicrobial capacity of the freshwater planarians against S. aureus is under the control of Timeless

ABSTRACT

Planarians, which are non-parasitic flatworms, are highly resistant to bacterial infections. To better understand the mechanisms underlying this resistance, we investigated the role of the circadian machinery in the anti-bacterial response of the freshwater planarian Schmidtea mediterranea. We identified Smed-Tim from S. mediterranea as a homolog of the mammalian clock gene Tim. We showed via RNA interference that Smed-Tim is required for the anti-microbial activities of Schmidtea mediterranea against Staphylococcus aureus infection during the light/dark cycle. Indeed, S. aureus infection leads to the expression of Smed-Tim, which in turn promotes Smed-Traf6 and Smed-morn2, but not Smed-p38 MAPK expression, 2 master regulators of planarian anti-microbial responses.

KEYWORDS:

• anti-bacterial response
• MORN2
• planarians;
• S. aureus
• Tim

This article is referred to by:

Planarian finds time(less) to fight infection

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

We thank R. Taware (CNRS UMR 7278) for his technical help.

Funding

This work has been supported by the CNRS (PEPS to E.G.), the Scientific Cooperation Foundation “Infectiopole Sud” and the Regional Council P.A.C.A (2009, Technical Facility to E.G.). LL.T. is a fellow of “Infectiopole Sud” and of the “Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.” C.T. is a fellow of the French Ministry of Research and Technology, and of “Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale” (FRM FDT20160435255). The funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation. The authors declare no competing financial interests.