The structural changes occurring in an organism during its development, known as morphogenesis, involves the modulation of cell adhesion. Cells can adhere to other cells expressing similar proteins or different proteins. Some cell surface molecules are anti-adhesive. The mechanisms of cell adhesion show similarities with innate immunity, an ancient and conserved system of self-nonself recognition. This three-year U.S.-France cooperative research project, between Andrew Chisholm of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Jonathan Ewbank and Nathalie Pujol of the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille, explores connections between these two basic processes in the nematode C. elegans. The Chisholm lab has expertise in molecular genetics of morphogenesis in C. elegans. The Ewbank lab in Marseille studies innate immunity using C. elegans as a model. While investigating the function of the nematode homologue of the receptor Toll, known to be important in other organisms for resistance to infection, they have determined that the receptor has a role in embryonic morphogenesis linked to cell adhesion. In this project they will identify genes that interact with known cell adhesion pathways in C. elegans morphogenesis using an automated sorter to dispense worms and sort animals and a whole genome RNA interference library available at the Ewbank lab in France.
These studies of cell adhesion and innate immunity pathways in the simple organism C. elegans will advance understanding of more complex versions of the same pathways in other animals and further our knowledge about cell adhesion's role in innate immunity. Undergraduate and graduate students will be trained in interdisciplinary and post-genomic approaches for studying complex biological processes.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) jointly support this project. NSF will cover the costs of visits to France by the U.S. investigators and students. The CNRS provides funding to the French investigators for their visits to the United States.
