Title: Development of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system to study virus-host interaction

Research group: Evolutionary Systems Virology

Since 1999 C. elegans has extensively used to study microbe-host interactions due to its simple culture, genetic tractability, and susceptibility to bacterial and fungal pathogens. In contrast, virus studies have been hampered by a lack of convenient virus infection models in nematodes. The discovery of a natural viral pathogens of C. elegans and development of diverse artificial infection models are providing new opportunities to explore virus-host interplay in this powerful model organism.

The goal of this 20-months exploratory project is three-fold. Firstly, to set up the conditions for the use of C. elegans as an experimental model system to study virus-host interactions, taking advantage of all its power for genetic and developmental analyses. Secondly, to set up the experimental protocols necessary for identifying genes involved in the worm’s resistance and susceptibility to different viruses of potential interest, including low-pathogenicity coronaviruses. Thirdly, to set up protocols for future evolution experiments.

Beyond this exploratory small project, we envision three long-term goals. Firstly, being able of using specific combinations of viruses and worm ecotypes for fast screenings of candidate antiviral compounds. Secondly, to use specific virus-worm ecotype pathosystems to study the evolution of virus-host interactions using genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic approaches and integrating the results into regulatory and protein-protein interaction networks. Thirdly, to study the effect of viral infection during host’ development.

Ref. PIE 202020E094

Santiago F. Elena

CSIC