Biology subjects

Charbonnel, N.

Publications and source records attributed to Charbonnel, N..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Differential immune gene expression associated with contemporary range expansion of two invasive rodents in Senegal

BackgroundBiological invasions are major anthropogenic changes associated with threats to biodiversity and health. What determines the successful establishment of introduced populations still remains unsolved. Here we explore the appealing assertion that invasion success relies on immune phenotypic traits that would be advantageous in recently invaded sites. ResultsWe compared gene expression profiles between anciently and recently established populations of two major invading species, the house mouse Mus musculus domesticus and the black rat Rattus rattus, in Senegal. Transcriptome analyses revealed respectively 364 and 83 differentially expressed genes along the mouse and rat invasion routes. Among them, 20.0% and 10.6% were annotated with functions related to immunity. All immune-related genes detected along the mouse invasion route were over-expressed in recently invaded sites. Genes of the complement activation pathway were over-represented. Results were less straightforward when considering the black rat as no particular immunological process was over-represented. ConclusionsWe revealed changes in transcriptome profiles along invasion routes. Patterns differed between both invasive species. These changes potentially be driven by increased infection risks in recently invaded sites for the house mouse and stochastic events associated with colonization history for the black rat. These results provide a first step in identifying the immune ecoevolutionary processes potentially involved in invasion success.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Metabarcoding for the parallel identification of several hundred predators and their preys: application to bat species diet analysis

Assessing diet variability is of main importance to better understand the biology of bats and design conservation strategies. Although the advent of metabarcoding has facilitated such analyses, this approach does not come without challenges. Biases may occur throughout the whole experiment, from fieldwork to biostatistics, resulting in the detection of false negatives, false positives or low taxonomic resolution. We detail a rigorous metabarcoding approach based on a short COI minibarcode and two-step PCR protocol enabling the all at once taxonomic identification of bats and their arthropod preys for several hundreds of samples. Our study includes faecal pellets collected in France from 357 bats representing 16 species, as well as insect mock communities that mimic bat meals of known composition, negative and positive controls. All samples were analysed using three replicates. We compare the efficiency of DNA extraction methods and we evaluate the effectiveness of our protocol using identification success, taxonomic resolution, sensitivity, and amplification biases. Our parallel identification strategy of predators and preys reduces the risk of mis-assigning preys to wrong predators and decreases the number of molecular steps. Controls and replicates enable to filter the data and limit the risk of false positives, hence guaranteeing high confidence results for both prey occurrence and bat species identification. We validate 551 COI variants from arthropod including 18 orders, 117 family, 282 genus and 290 species. Our method therefore provides a rapid, resolutive and cost-effective screening tool for addressing evolutionary ecological issues or developing chirosurveillance and conservation strategies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Population genomics of bank vole populations reveals associations between immune related genes and the epidemiology of Puumala hantavirus in Sweden

Infectious pathogens are major selective forces acting on individuals. The recent advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies now enables to investigate the genetic bases of resistance/susceptibility to infections in non-model organisms. From an evolutionary perspective, the analysis of the genetic diversity observed at these genes in natural populations provides insight into the mechanisms maintaining polymorphism and their epidemiological consequences. We explored these questions in the context of the interactions between Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) and its reservoir host, the bank vole Myodes glareolus. Despite the continuous spatial distribution of M. glareolus in Europe, PUUV distribution is strongly heterogeneous. Different defence strategies might have evolved in bank voles as a result of co-adaptation with PUUV, which may in turn reinforce spatial heterogeneity in PUUV distribution. We performed a genome scan study of six bank vole populations sampled along a North/South transect in Sweden, including PUUV endemic and non-endemic areas. We combined candidate gene analyses (Tlr4, Tlr7, Mx2 genes) and high throughput sequencing of RAD (Restriction-site Associated DNA) markers. We found evidence for outlier loci showing high levels of genetic differentiation. Ten outliers among the 52 that matched to mouse protein-coding genes corresponded to immune related genes and were detected using ecological associations with variations in PUUV prevalence. One third of the enriched pathways concerned immune processes, including platelet activation and TLR pathway. In the future, functional experimentations should enable to confirm the role of these these immune related genes with regard to the interactions between M. glareolus and PUUV.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Bank Vole Immunoheterogeneity May Limit Nephropatia Epidemica Emergence In A French Non-Endemic Region

Ecoevolutionary processes affecting hosts, vectors and pathogens are important drivers of zoonotic disease emergence. In this study, we focused on nephropathia epidemica (NE), which is caused by Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) whose natural reservoir is the bank vole, Myodes glareolus. Despite the continuous distribution of the reservoir in Europe, PUUV occurence is highly fragmented. We questioned the possibility of NE emergence in a French region that is considered to be NE-free but that is adjacent to a NE-endemic region. We first confirmed the epidemiology of these two regions using serological and virological surveys. We used bank vole population genetics to demonstrate the absence of spatial barriers that could have limited dispersal, and consequently, the spread of PUUV into the NE-free region. We next tested whether regional immunoheterogeneity could impact PUUV chances to establish, circulate and persist in the NE-free region. Immune responsiveness was phenotyped both in the wild and during experimental infections, using serological, virological and immune related gene expression assays. We showed that bank voles from the NE-free region were sensitive to experimental PUUV infection. We observed high levels of immunoheterogeneity between individuals and also between regions. In natural populations, antiviral gene expression (Tnf and Mx2 genes) reached higher levels in bank voles from the NE-free region. During experimental infections, anti-PUUV antibody production was higher in bank voles from the NE endemic region. Altogether, our results indicated a lower susceptibility to PUUV for bank voles from this NE-free region, what might limit PUUV circulation and persistence, and in turn, the risk of NE.\n\nGraphical abstract\n\nO_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=128 SRC=\"FIGDIR/small/130252_ufig1.gif\" ALT=\"Figure 1\">\nView larger version (25K):\norg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@f90a69org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1a9e0dorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@17e96b8org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d936e8_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Biological invasions in rodent communities: from ecological interactions to zoonotic bacterial infection issues

Several hypotheses (such as enemy release, novel weapon, spillback and dilution/density effect) suggest changes in host-parasite ecological interactions during biological invasion events. Such changes can impact both invasion process outcome and the dynamics of exotic and/or endemic zoonotic diseases. To evaluate these predictions, we investigated the ongoing invasions of the house mouse Mus musculus domesticus, and the black rat, Rattus rattus, in Senegal (West Africa). We focused on zoonotic bacterial communities depicted using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing approach in both invasive and native rodents sampled along two well-defined invasion routes. Overall, this study provided new ecological evidence connecting parasitism and rodent invasion process, with diverse potential roles of zoonotic bacteria in the invasion success. Our results also highlighted the main factors that lie behind bacterial community structure in commensal rodents. Further experimental studies as well as comparative spatio-temporal surveys are necessary to decipher the actual role of zoonotic bacteria in these invasions. Our data also gave new support for the difficulty to predict the direction in which the relationship between biodiversity changes and disease risk could go. These results should be used as a basis for public health prevention services to design reservoir monitoring strategies based on multiple pathogen surveillance.

ecology↗