and welcome to bluesky @elena-l-r.bsky.social 👏👏👏

There is (A LOT) more in the manuscript! Please have a look for yourself!

So, it appears this is a unique case of eukaryotic and prokaryotic virulence factors that have convergently evolved to drive the same host phenotype through a similar mechanism… pretty cool

Follow-up experiments confirmed that MVP1 controls microvilli elongation during Cryptosporidium infection!

…mirroring the host interactions of the pathogenic E. coli virulence factor MAP... WHICH IS ALSO KNOWN TO DRIVE MICROVILLI ELONGATION 🤯

When we dove into the function of the most highly expressed family member, MVP1, we discovered interactions with host actin modulators EBP50 and CDC42…

Here, we describe a new family of virulence factors that the parasite exports into the host cell following infection that… localise to the microvilli! We named this new family the MicroVilli Proteins or MVPs. 😉

During a Cryptosporidium infection it’s easy to find intestinal epithelial cells that harbor the parasite… Why? Infected cells have looooooong microvilli... 2-4x the length of uninfected cells (image from the amazing David Ferguson with parasites in color).

👏👏👏 @lucy-watson.bsky.social (and welcome to bluesky)