Evidence of opportunistic blood feeding in the parasitic nematode <i>Heligmosomoides bakeri</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Haem, which binds iron and oxygen, is essential for parasitic nematode growth. Nematodes lack endogenous haem synthesis pathways and acquire haem from their environment or intracellular symbionts. Genes involved in haem degradation and detoxification have been identified in parasitic nematodes who are either specialised blood feeders (haematophages) or reside in the blood stream. Targeting these genes, so limiting parasite growth and promoting parasite death, provides a new therapeutic avenue against blood feeding parasitic nematodes. Heligmosomoides bakeri , a model intestinal parasitic nematode, has not been considered a blood feeder. Adults live in the intestinal lumen and graze on host tissue. However, the earlier larval stages enter the intestinal tissue, where they grow and moult multiple times, an oxygen demanding process. We have shown that, in vivo , likely through nematode-induced damage, many tissue-dwelling H. bakeri are in close vicinity of red blood cells. During this time, infection induces host anemia. Further, tissue-dwelling H. bakeri that have fed on blood have an increased expression of collagen genes compared to those parasites that had not fed on blood. In vitro , this translates to a growth advantage. Our findings suggest blood feeding is more widespread among nematodes than currently described. We argue that biochemical adaptations previously considered to be limited to blood-feeders are found in other nematodes. Moreover, H. bakeri can serve as a model for studying blood-feeding mechanisms and developing anthelminthic strategies to them.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".