Trade-offs in life-history traits is a central tenet in evolutionary biology, yet their ubiquity and relevance to realized fitness in natural populations remains questioned. Trade-offs in pathogens are of particular interest because they may constrain the evolution and epidemiology of diseases. Here, we studied life-history traits determining transmission in the obligate fungal pathogen, Podosp...

The BTB domain is a protein–protein interaction motif found throughout eukaryotes. Here we report the identification of two closely related BTB domain-containing proteins, POZ/BTB CONTAINING-PROTEIN 1 (POB1) and POB2, as negative regulators of defense against pathogens. In yeast two-hybrid assays, POB1 and POB2 dimerize through their BTB domains. The pob1–1 pob2–1 double mutant plants exhibited...

The mammalian innate immune system recognizes pathogen-associated molecular patterns through pathogen recognition receptors. Nod1 has been described recently as a cytosolic receptor that detects specifically diaminopimelate-containing muropeptides from Gram-negative bacteria peptidoglycan. In the present study we investigated the potential role of Nod1 in the innate immune response against the ...

To determine the role of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in the immune response to pneumonia, C3H/HeJ mice (which display a mutant nonfunctional TLR4) and C3H/HeN wild-type mice were intranasally infected with either Streptococcus pneumoniae (a common gram-positive respiratory pathogen) or Klebsiella pneumoniae (a common gram-negative respiratory pathogen). In cases of pneumococcal pneumonia, TLR4 ...

Plant small RNAs play important roles in gene regulation during pathogen infection. Here we show that miR863-3p is induced by the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae carrying various effectors. Early during infection, miR863-3p silences two negative regulators of plant defence, atypical receptor-like pseudokinase1 (ARLPK1) and ARLPK2, both lacking extracellular domains and kinase activity, ...

INTRODUCTION Listeria monocytogenes (LM) is known to cause severe invasive disease in pregnant women and in newborns. Fortunately, despite the wide natural distribution of this pathogen, clinically overt neonatal infections occurs rarely. As a consequence, listeriosis is not always considered for early onset neonatal infection, especially when blood culture is negative. Indeed, identification o...