Endosymbionts of arthropods and nematodes: allies to fight infectious diseases?

Les bactéries symbiotiques d'arthropodes et de nématodes : De nouvelles alliées dans le contrôle des maladies infectieuses

Fabrice Vavre (1) , Patrick Mavingui (2)

1 Génétique et évolution des interactions hôtes-parasites
2 LEM - Laboratoire d'Ecologie Microbienne - UMR 5557

Arthropods and nematodes are important protagonists in human health because either they act as vectors of pathogens (bacteria, protozoa, viruses or fungus), or are themselves parasites. Fighting infectious diseases is based essentially on vaccination (prevention) or chemotherapeutic (curative) approaches in human, but one can envisage as an alternative to reduce the number of vectors or limit their ability to spread pathogens. Such strategies controling dissemination will undoubtedly benefit from the knowledge accumumulated by recent works on powerful mechanisms developped by symbiotic insect bacteria such as Wolbachia to popagate in arthropods and nematods. This review summarizes these recent data, and indicate how these mechanisms can be manipulated to reduce the dissemination of insect vectors propagating human diseases.

Mots clés: arthropods; vectors of pathogens; human; bacteria; viruses or fungus; protozoa; medicine; research and experimental

Mots clés: nematodes

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie

Fabrice Vavre, Patrick Mavingui. Endosymbionts of arthropods and nematodes: allies to fight infectious diseases?. Médecine/Sciences, 2011, 27 (11), pp.953-958. ⟨10.1051/medsci/20112711010⟩. ⟨halsde-00723503⟩