Bartolo, Gloria
Gloria is in the Immunity, Microbes & Molecular Pathogenesis (IMMP) Home Area of the MBIDP, and joined the CMB Training Program in 2022.
Mentor: Dr. Elissa Hallem
Parasitic nematodes infect over 1 billion people worldwide, largely affecting the marginalized, low- income populations of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The skin-penetrating human threadworm Strongyloides stercoralis is a soil-dwelling parasitic nematode that currently infects an estimated 610 million people globally. DEET, the world’s most widely used topical insect repellent, was recently discovered to interfere with the chemosensory behavior of the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans in response to known attractant molecules. We hypothesize that DEET, and other widely used insect repellent compounds, will interfere with the chemosensory behavior and skin penetrating ability of Strongyloides.
My research project aims to:
1. Determine the effects of insect repellents on Strongyloides' chemosensory behavior. We have pre-selected a list of widely used insect repellents (including DEET) and will test whether any of them modulate Strongyloides chemotaxis and/or skin-penetration behaviors of human and rat skin, respectively.
2. Identify the molecular and neural mechanisms by which insect repellents modulate chemosensory behavior. To investigate the neural mechanisms that mediate any observed insect repellent-mediated behavior in parasitic nematodes, stimulus-evoked neurons will be chemogenetically silenced. Additionally, genes required for olfactory responses (tax-4 and osm- 9) will be knocked out to determine their role, and individual chemosensory receptors will be identified.
In addition to our pre-selected insect repellents, we will perform similar assays on a library of FDA-approved drugs. Such efforts may result in the discovery of novel topical anthelmintics.
