Functional analysis of fatty acid and retinol binding proteins (FAR) en C. elegans

JOSE F. LOMBARDO; BETINA CÓRSICO; COLLETTE BRITTON; GISELA R. FRANCHINI

Rosario

Congreso; 2nd Latin American Worm Meeting; 2020

Fatty Acid and Retinol Binding Proteins (FAR) are found exclusively in nematodes and are conserved in both free-living and parasitic species where they are found in the excretory/secretory products (Kennedy, 1997, Basavaraju 2003). These proteins are hypothesized to participate in the acquisition of nutrients from their host, required for development and/or to manipulate host defense mechanisms, but their specific functions are still unknown (Bradley, 2001, Iberkleid, 2013). Eight FAR genes are present in Caenorhabditis elegans and we have previously demonstrated a close phylogenetic relationship between them and FAR proteins found in parasitic nematodes (Rey Burusco, 2015). The ultimate goal of this project is to gain insight into the biological functions of these proteins in C. elegans and analyze their potential use as therapeutic and diagnostic targets in parasitic infections. Since gene knockout technology is not currently available for parasitic species we propose using C. elegans to study the functions of nematode FAR proteins using RNA interference (RNAi) gene silencing and genetic mutants to determine the effects on its development, viability and metabolism (Kamath, 2003). We have performed the silencing of each FAR protein using the rrf-3 strain with bacteria carrying specific siRNAs, in normal growth conditions. In the case of the FAR 3 knock down an apparently premature internal hatching was observed. Moreover, we are starting to analyze the knockout mutant strains for FAR-2, FAR-4 and FAR-6.