Les microalgues rouges de l’espèce Rhodella violacea produisent un exopolysaccharide soluble dans le milieu de culture. Au cours de ce travail, les conditions optimales de production ont été déterminées en étudiant l’activité photosynthétique et le milieu de culture des microalgues. La croissance cellulaire et la production d’EPS de R. violacea sont optimales avec un milieu de culture f/2 modifié, supplémenté en azote et en phosphore. L’irradiance optimale est de 420 μmol de photons.m-2.s-1, sous une température de 24°C avec un pH de 8,3. La culture de la microalgue en photobioréacteur de 5 L a permis la production optimale de 0,5 g.L-1 de polymère. Le polysaccharide produit est un protéoglycane de type xylane sulfaté et de haute masse molaire (1,2 106 g.mol-1), contenant également du rhamnose, du glucose, de l’arabinose, du galactose et de l’acide glucuronique. L’effet antiparasitaire des polymères de microalgues et de macroalgues a été testé sur des microsporidies, in vitro avec des fibroblastes de prépuce humain infestés par Encephalitozoon cuniculi et in vivo contre la nosémose des abeilles causée par Nosema ceranae. L’exopolymère de R. violacea empêche la croissance des microsporidies in vitro et in vivo, et conduit à une diminution de la mortalité des abeilles. D’autres molécules testées ont également une action antiparasitaire, les EPS de Porphyridium purpureum et marinum, et des carraghénanes sulfatés permettent également de diminuer la croissance des microsporidies et la mortalité des abeilles. / Red microalgae from Rhodella violacea species product a soluble exopolysaccharide release in the media. In this study, optimal culture conditions for exopolysaccharide production were investigated, following photosynthesis activity and culture conditions. This study allowed us to determinate R. violacea optimal media for growth and exopolysaccharide production, which is f/2 media supplemented in nitrogen and phosphorus. Optimal physicochemical parameters are an irradiance of 420 μmol photons.m-2.s-1, a temperature of 24°C, and a pH of 8.3. Photobioreactor of 5 L used to cultivate R. violacea in optimal conditions, gave 0.5 g.L-1 of EPS. Structural analysis of the EPS revealed the production of a proteoglycan, principally composed by xylose, sulfated and with a high molecular mass (1.2 106 g.mol-1). The polymer is complex, as it contains different monosaccharide: rhamnose, galactose, arabinose and glucuronic acid. The antiparasitic effect of polymers from microalgae, and macroalgae were investigated on microsporidia, in vitro against Encephalitozoon cuniculi using Human foreskin fibroblasts, and in vivo against Nosema ceranae using bees. Exopolysaccharide from R. violacea decreases microsporidia growth in vivo and in vitro. In addition, in vivo the polymer allows decrease in bees’ mortality. Polysaccharide from others origins also have antiparasitic effet, such as exopolymer from Porphyridium purpureum and marinum, and sulphated carragheenans which reduce microsporidia growth, and decrease bees’ mortality.

The prevalence of microsporidial infection among different species of exotic birds was screened using molecular methods. Moreover, the course of microsporidial spores excretion by naturally infected budgerigars was monitored during 30 days long period and subsequently, the site of the infection in tissues of these budgerigars was attempted to be located using histology, electron microscopy and molecular methods.

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular eukaryotic parasites related to fungi, possessing greatly reduced genomic and cellular components. The microsporidian Nosema ceranae threatens honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations. Nosemosis has a complex epidemiology affected by host, pathogen and environmental factors. Although a draft of the N. ceranae genome has been published, the molecular basis underpinning pathogenicity is not known. The lack of established culturing techniques and a tractable genetic system necessitates use of model systems for both host and parasite such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I hypothesise effectors essential to disease progression exist amongst N. ceranae secretome genes. In this study I have started characterising these genes using a combination of established and novel techniques for studying microsporidia proteins including bioinformatics, heterologous expression in S. cerevisiae, and the genome-wide analysis platform of Synthetic Genetic Arrays. This effort has yielded new insights into N. ceranae secreted proteins which lack similarity to known sequences. I identified N. ceranae protein NcS77 as a candidate effector implicated in targeting host nuclear pores. NcS50 and NcS85 co-localise with ERG6 a marker for lipid droplets (an organelle known to be targeted by another obligate intracellular pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis) when expressed in S. cerevisiae. N. ceranae polar tube proteins (PTP) induce filament formation when expressed in S. cerevisiae and PTP2 co-localises with the cell wall. Interestingly this phenotype is replicated by another secreted protein which may infer a common function. Together these data contribute to knowledge on N. ceranae pathology bringing us closer to understanding the disease and ultimately lead the way to mitigation.

Lors de la mise en place d’une interaction hôte-parasite, les principales barrières à franchir sont les mêmes quel que soit l’hôte considéré. Il faut que le parasite rencontre l’hôte puis qu’il soit capable d’échapper à ses systèmes de défenses. Pour cela, au-cours de la coévolution, les parasites ont ainsi développé des stratégies moléculaires leur permettant de pirater les réseaux de l’hôte, menant à l’établissement d’un dialogue moléculaire. Les microsporidies, qui sont des parasites intracellulaires obligatoires, ont, du fait de leur forte dépendance vis-à-vis de leur hôte, probablement développé des stratégies très poussées de piratage. L’objectif de cette thèse a été d’initier le décryptage du dialogue moléculaire qui s’établit entre une microsporidie et son hôte à deux niveaux d’intégration. Au niveau cellulaire, l’étude de la réponse protéique de cellules fibroblastiques humaines à l’infection par Anncaliia algerae a permis de suggérer l’existence d’une stratégie originale de leurre de l’hôte grâce à l’expression d’un élément transposable. Au niveau tissulaire, l’étude de la réponse protéique d’intestin d’abeilles infectées par Nosema ceranae a révélé une perturbation de l’homéostasie du tissu intestinal pouvant être à l’origine d’un impact négatif de l’infection sur le taux de renouvellement de l’épithélium. Un suivi du taux de multiplication des cellules souches intestinales lors d’une cinétique d’infection nous a permis de conforter cette hypothèse. Le suivi de l’expression de gènes impliqués dans les voies de signalisation contrôlant ce taux de renouvellement a confirmé une perturbation de l’homéostasie intestinale de l’abeille. Cependant, les mécanismes par lesquels les microsporidies arrivent à se développer chez leurs hôtes ne sont pas connus et méritent d’être explorés. / Within the host-parasite interaction, the parasite need to cross the same barriers whatever the host considered. First, the parasite has to meet its host and to escape its defense systems. For this purpose, the parasites have developed, during coevolution, molecular strategies allowing them to hijack the host networks, leading to the set-up of a real molecular crosstalk. Microsporidia, which are obligate intracellular parasites, have probably developed very sophisticated strategies to hijack their host cell functions as they are strongly dependent to their hosts. The objective of this thesis was to pave the way to the deciphering of the molecular dialogue that takes place during the interaction between a microsporidia and its host, at two different integration levels. At the cellular level, the study of the proteome response of human fibroblast cells to the infection by Anncaliia algerae allowed us to suggest the existence of a lure strategy used by A. algerae to bypass the host response. At the tissue level, the study of the midgut proteome response of honeybees infected by Nosema ceranae revealed a disturbance of the intestinal homeostasis. These results lead us to the hypothesis of a negative impact of the infection on the midgut epithelium renewal rates. This assumption was confirmed by a monitoring of the multiplication rate of intestinal stem cells during a kinetics of infection and of the expression of genes implicated in the signaling pathways controlling this renewal. However, the underlying mechanisms allowing microsporidia to develop in hosts are not known and deserve to be explored.

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular pathogens of medical and ecological importance whose genomes have been studied extensively over the last decade. Their parasitic lifestyle has lead them to lose a great number of genes and, thus, biochemical pathways capacities, but these reductive processes have been often offset by the acquisition of several genes by means of horizontal gene transfer (HGT). First, in this thesis, we will describe the complete genomes of Encephalitozoon hellem and Encephalitozoon romaleae. Both species also were found to harbor a number of protein-coding genes absent in other microsporidia, which products assembled complete metabolic pathways. All these genes are functionally related to DNA and folate metabolism, and all appear to have been acquired from HGT events from different eukaryotic and prokaryotic donors. Interestingly in E. romaleae genes involved in de novo synthesis of folate are all pseudogenes, highlighting the transient nature of transferred genes. Secondly, we took a closer look at the ploidy and sexual status of Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a vertebrate pathogen, by mapping Illumina sequence reads against the genomes of four strains of this species. We identified the presence of low level of heterozygosity in all strains investigated; a feature that revealed the diploid nuclear state of the species. This reductive intra-individual genetic diversity could result from the long-term propagation of these strains under laboratory conditions, but we propose that it could also reflect an intrinsic capacity of these vertebrate pathogens to self-reproduce. Overall, the work presented in this thesis resulted in a much greater understanding of the genome evolution of a medically and economically important group of parasites.

Background: Microsporidia are obligate intracellular opportunistic fungi that cause significant pathology in immunocompromised hosts. However, 11 percent of immunocompetent individuals in the general population are microsporidia-seropositive, indicating that severe immune suppression may not be a prerequisite for infection. Encephalitozoon intestinalis is transmitted in contaminated water and initially infects gastro-intestinal enterocytes, leading to diarrheal disease. This organism can also disseminate to many other organs. A recent report suggests that microsporidia can establish persistent infections, which anti-fungal treatment does not eradicate. Like other intracellular pathogens, microsporidia infection stresses the host cell and infected individuals have elevated hydrogen peroxide and free radical levels. Findings. As oxidative stress can lead to DNA damage, we hypothesized that E. intestinalis-infection would increase host cell nuclear mutation rate. Embryo fibroblasts from Big Blue§ssup§TM§esup§ transgenic mice were E. intestinalis-infected and host nuclear mutation frequency was determined by selection of temperature-sensitive c-II gene mutant λ phage. The host mutation frequency in E. intestinalis-infected cultures was 2.5-fold higher than that observed in either mock-infected cells or cells infected with UV-inactivated E. intestinalis spores. Conclusions: These data provide the first evidence that microsporidia infection can directly increase host cellular mutation frequency. Additionally, some event in the microsporidia developmental cycle between host cell attachment and parasitophorous vacuole formation is required for the observed effect. As there is considerable evidence linking infection with other intracellular pathogens and cancer, future studies to dissect the mechanism by which E. intestinalis infection increases host mutation frequency are warranted.

Background: Microsporidia are obligate intracellular opportunistic fungi that cause significant pathology in immunocompromised hosts. However, 11 percent of immunocompetent individuals in the general population are microsporidia-seropositive, indicating that severe immune suppression may not be a prerequisite for infection. Encephalitozoon intestinalis is transmitted in contaminated water and initially infects gastro-intestinal enterocytes, leading to diarrheal disease. This organism can also disseminate to many other organs. A recent report suggests that microsporidia can establish persistent infections, which anti-fungal treatment does not eradicate. Like other intracellular pathogens, microsporidia infection stresses the host cell and infected individuals have elevated hydrogen peroxide and free radical levels. Findings. As oxidative stress can lead to DNA damage, we hypothesized that E. intestinalis-infection would increase host cell nuclear mutation rate. Embryo fibroblasts from Big Blue§ssup§TM§esup§ transgenic mice were E. intestinalis-infected and host nuclear mutation frequency was determined by selection of temperature-sensitive c-II gene mutant λ phage. The host mutation frequency in E. intestinalis-infected cultures was 2.5-fold higher than that observed in either mock-infected cells or cells infected with UV-inactivated E. intestinalis spores. Conclusions: These data provide the first evidence that microsporidia infection can directly increase host cellular mutation frequency. Additionally, some event in the microsporidia developmental cycle between host cell attachment and parasitophorous vacuole formation is required for the observed effect. As there is considerable evidence linking infection with other intracellular pathogens and cancer, future studies to dissect the mechanism by which E. intestinalis infection increases host mutation frequency are warranted.

Microsporidia are a distant fungal pathogen that have severe clinical consequences for the immunocompromised. Previous work identified a microsporidian pathogen protein termed Microsporidian ADAM or MADAM. This protein has close sequence homology to other ADAM proteins (A Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase) in two microsporidian species, Encephalitozoon intestinalis and E. cuniculi. ADAM proteins have a wide range of functions, including binding to integrins and host signaling. It is known that many pathogens manipulate integrins to invade host cells, and it is predicted that microsporidia are also exploiting this host target. Previous work with the MADAM protein demonstrated that this protein has a role in adherence to host cells. Separate work showed integrin inhibitors can also decrease spore adherence to cells. Experiments in this project complement previous research and further characterize the binding of microsporidia to host integrins and the intracellular consequences of that binding. This work found the integrin binding sequence of MADAM (MADAM peptide) is important for spore binding to host cells. Separate work shows that the host β1 integrin is also involved in spore adherence. Additional work demonstrated that spores and the MADAM peptide elicited an increase in host integrin signaling in Western blotting experiments. And finally, preliminary acellular interferometry experiments suggest the MADAM protein binds specifically to α5β1 and α6β4 integrins. Together, these results suggest microsporidia spores rely, in part, on host integrins to bind to host cells before infection.

Le parasite microsporidien Nosema ceranae est un pathogène émergent de l’abeille européenne (Apis mellifera). Il provoque une maladie appelée nosémose qui peut induire de fortes mortalités dans les colonies. La présence de N. ceranae dans les ruches n’est pas toutefois pas systématiquement associée à des symptômes ou à une dépopulation, ce qui suggère une variabilité de sa virulence. Une hypothèse proposée pour expliquer cette variation repose sur l'existence potentielle de variants parasitaires de niveaux de virulence différents. Ce travail a eu pour objectif d’évaluer le polymorphisme de N. ceranae par une approche multilocus, dans le but de savoir s’il est possible de différencier des isolats parasitaires. La diversité nucléotidique de dix marqueurs génétiques a été évaluée dans des abeilles géographiquement éloignées. L’analyse du polymorphisme de ces gènes a révélé un fort contenu allélique au sein même d'un individu hôte mais une absence de divergence entre les populations parasitaires issues d'hôtes distincts. Ces données montrent que cette approche multilocus ne permet de pas de différencier des isolats de N. ceranae, mais que des populations parasitaires similaires infectent des abeilles géographiquement distantes. Ces données sont en accord avec l'hypothèse d'une colonisation récente d'A. mellifera par N. ceranae mais posent de nombreuses questions quand à l'origine de la diversité parasitaire au sein d'un seul individu. Le second volet de cette thèse a eu pour objectif de rechercher dans le génome de N. ceranae des gènes codant de potentiels facteurs de virulence puis de produire des protéines recombinantes et des anticorps dirigés contre ces facteurs. Ces anticorps devaient permettre de localiser ces protéines d'intérêt au niveau subcellulaire dans des tissus infectés. / The microsporidian parasite Nosema ceranae is an emergent pathogen of the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera). It is associated to a disease called nosemosis that can lead to high mortality of honybees in colonies. Its presence in hives has not been systematically linked to symptoms or depopulation, suggesting a variation in its virulence. Thus, the existence of several N. ceranae variants with different virulence levels has been proposed. In this work aimed to assess N. ceranae polymorphism through a multilocus approach to test whether is it possible to discriminate between parasite taxa. Thus the nucleotide diversity of ten marker genes has been measured in parasite populations isolated from single A. mellifera individuals in distant locations. While high nucleotide diversity and allele content have been observed for all genes in single individuals, the absence of isolate differentiation precluded any taxa discrimination. These data support the hypothesis of a recent host-jump to A. mellifera and suggest that similar populations of parasites infect honeybees in distant locations. However they question the origin of such polymorphism within one host. In the second part of this work genes encoding putative virulence factors have been searched within N. ceranae genome, in order to produce recombinant proteins and then specific antibodies. Such antibodies would allow the subcellular localization of those proteins in infected tissues.

Conifer seed-infesting chalcids of the genus Megastigmus (Hymenoptera: Torymidae) are important forest pests. At least one species, M. spermotrophus Wachtl, has been shown to be able to manipulate the seed development of its host, Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in remarkable ways, such as redirecting unfertilized ovules that would normally abort. The mechanism of host manipulation is currently unknown. Microbial associates and venoms are two potential mechanisms of host manipulation. Microbial associates are emerging as an important player in insect-plant interactions. There is also evidence that venoms may be important in gall-induction by phytophagous wasps. PCR and 16S rRNA pyrosequencing was used to characterize the microbial associates of Megastigmus and transcriptomic sequencing was used to identify putative venoms that were highly expressed in female M. spermotrophus. The common inherited bacterial symbionts Wolbachia and Rickettsia were found to be prevalent among several populations of Megastigmus spp. screened using a targeted PCR approach. A member of the Betaproteobacteria, Ralstonia, was identified as the dominant microbial associate of M. spermotrophus using 16S rRNA pyrosequencing. The transcriptome of M. spermotrophus was assembled de novo and three putative venoms were identified as highly expressed in females. One of these putative venoms, Aspartylglucosaminidase, (AGA) appears to have originated through gene duplication within the Hymenoptera and has been identified as a major venom component of two divergent parasitoid wasps. AGA was identified as a promising candidate for further investigation as a potential mechanism of early host manipulation by M. spermotrophus. / Graduate / 0353 / 0410 / 0715 / apaulson@shaw.ca