Discrimination between pathogenic and beneficial microbes is essential for host organism immunity and homeostasis. Here, we show that chemosensory detection of two secondary metabolites produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa modulates a neuroendocrine signaling pathway that promotes avoidance behavior in the simple animal host Caenorhabditis elegans. Secondary metabolites phenazine-1-carboxamide and pyochelin activate a G-protein-signaling pathway in the ASJ chemosensory neuron pair that induces expression of the neuromodulator DAF-7/TGF-β. DAF-7, in turn, activates a canonical TGF-β signaling pathway in adjacent interneurons to modulate aerotaxis behavior and promote avoidance of pathogenic P. aeruginosa. Our data provide a chemical, genetic, and neuronal basis for how the behavior and physiology of a simple animal host can be modified by the microbial environment and suggest that secondary metabolites produced by microbes may provide environmental cues that contribute to pathogen recognition and host survival.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 66. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 September 2016.
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#737,205
of 28,818,276 outputs
Outputs from Cell
#3,390
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#6,815
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Outputs of similar age from Cell
#43
of 146 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,818,276 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 18,098 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 62.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 146 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
