{"doi":"10.1101/2022.12.15.520564","title":"A receptor tyrosine kinase regulated by the transcription factor VAB-3/PAX6 pairs with a pseudokinase to trigger immune signalling upon oomycete recognition in <i>C. elegans</i>","abstract":"Summary Oomycetes were recently discovered as natural pathogens of Caenorhabditis elegans and pathogen recognition alone was shown to be sufficient to activate a protective transcriptional program in the host characterised by the expression of multiple chitinase-like ( chil ) genes. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying oomycete recognition in animals remain fully unknown. We performed here a forward genetic screen to uncover regulators of chil gene induction and found several independent loss-of-function alleles of old-1 and flor-1, which encode receptor tyrosine kinases belonging to the C. elegans -specific KIN-16 family. We present evidence that OLD-1 is an active kinase mounting the immune response, and FLOR-1 a pseudokinase that is also required for the response and regulates the distribution of OLD-1 at the epidermal membrane. Interestingly, the old-1 locus is adjacent to the chil genes in the nematode genome, thereby revealing a genetic cluster important for oomycete-resistance. Furthermore, we identify the VAB-3/PAX-6 transcription factor known for its role in visual system development to regulate old-1 expression, and consequently the spatial pattern of the response to oomycete recognition. Taken together, our study reveals both conserved and species-specific factors shaping the response to oomycete recognition.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":305071,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9605,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":703412,"name":"Manish Grover","orcid":"0000-0002-1625-7930","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":397537,"name":"Mark Hintze","orcid":"0000-0002-5881-5160","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":998537,"name":"J. H. Saunders","orcid":"0009-0002-4631-8340","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":703411,"name":"Michael K. Fasseas","orcid":"0000-0003-2594-1686","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":998983,"name":"Charis Constantinou","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":308280,"name":"Michalis Barkoulas","orcid":"0000-0003-1974-7668","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":703413,"name":"Florence Drury","orcid":"0000-0001-8942-5459","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":58,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:32:37.185846Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}