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Science 26 July 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5581, pp. 623 - 626
DOI: 10.1126/science.1073759
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Reports

A Conserved p38 MAP Kinase Pathway in Caenorhabditis elegans Innate Immunity

Dennis H. Kim,1* Rhonda Feinbaum,1* Geneviève Alloing,1dagger Fred E. Emerson,1 Danielle A. Garsin,1 Hideki Inoue,2 Miho Tanaka-Hino,2 Naoki Hisamoto,2 Kunihiro Matsumoto,2 Man-Wah Tan,1ddagger Frederick M. Ausubel1§

A genetic screen for Caenorhabditis elegans mutants with enhanced susceptibility to killing by Pseudomonas aeruginosa led to the identification of two genes required for pathogen resistance: sek-1, which encodes a mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase kinase, and nsy-1, which encodes a MAP kinase kinase kinase. RNA interference assays and biochemical analysis established that a p38 ortholog, pmk-1, functions as the downstream MAP kinase required for pathogen defense. These data suggest that this MAP kinase signaling cassette represents an ancient feature of innate immune responses in evolutionarily diverse species.

1 Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
2 Department of Molecular Biology, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University and CREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
*   These authors contributed equally to this work.

dagger    Present address: Laboratoire de Biologie Vegetale et Microbiologie, Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Parc Valrose 06108 Nice Cedex 2, France.

ddagger    Present address: Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Room M337, Stanford, CA 94305-5120, USA.

§   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ausubel{at}molbio.mgh.harvard.edu

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