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The Function and Structure of the Microsporidia Polar Tube

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Microsporidia

Part of the book series: Experientia Supplementum ((EXS,volume 114))

Abstract

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular pathogens that were initially identified about 160 years ago. Current phylogenetic analysis suggests that they are grouped with Cryptomycota as a basal branch or sister group to the fungi. Microsporidia are found worldwide and can infect a wide range of animals from invertebrates to vertebrates, including humans. They are responsible for a variety of diseases once thought to be restricted to immunocompromised patients but also occur in immunocompetent individuals. The small oval spore containing a coiled polar filament, which is part of the extrusion and invasion apparatus that transfers the infective sporoplasm to a new host, is a defining characteristic of all microsporidia. When the spore becomes activated, the polar filament uncoils and undergoes a rapid transition into a hollow tube that will transport the sporoplasm into a new cell. The polar tube has the ability to increase its diameter from approximately 100 nm to over 600 nm to accommodate the passage of an intact sporoplasm and penetrate the plasmalemma of the new host cell. During this process, various polar tube proteins appear to be involved in polar tube attachment to host cell and can interact with host proteins. These various interactions act to promote host cell infection.

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Acknowledgments

All of the standard transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was conducted at the Rutgers Newark Electron Microscopy Facility which was funded in part by NIH grant AI091985 awarded to Dr. Ann Cali. Some of the cryo-TEM microscopy was conducted at the Albert Einstein Analytical Imaging Facility (AECOM) which is supported in part by the NCI Cancer Center Support GrantP30CA013330 and shared instrumentation grant 1S10OD016214-01A1. Additional CTEM and the focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) were performed at the Simons Electron Microscopy Center and National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy located at the New York Structural Biology Center (NYSBC), supported by grants from the Simons Foundation (SF349247), NYSTAR, and the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM103310). We also thank William Rice for his assistance with the CTEM and FIB-SEM and Ashleigh Raczkowski NYSBC. Additionally, we thank Xheni Nishku AECOM for her assistance with the segmentation and 3-D images. PMT would like to thank Dr. Ann Cali for her many discussions and insightful ideas and for sharing her bountiful knowledge on the microsporidia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathogenic Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, **an, China

    Bing Han

  2. Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA

    Bing Han, Peter M. Takvorian & Louis M. Weiss

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

    Peter M. Takvorian

  4. Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA

    Louis M. Weiss

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Correspondence to Louis M. Weiss .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Pathology and Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

    Louis M. Weiss

  2. Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Aaron W. Reinke

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The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grants AI124753 (L.M.W.) and AI132614 (L.M.W.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 32000106) (B.H.), and the QILU Young Scholars Program of Shandong University (grant no. 21510082063092) (B.H.).

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All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Han, B., Takvorian, P.M., Weiss, L.M. (2022). The Function and Structure of the Microsporidia Polar Tube. In: Weiss, L.M., Reinke, A.W. (eds) Microsporidia. Experientia Supplementum, vol 114. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93306-7_8

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