{"id":111238,"date":"2020-07-23T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//?p=111238"},"modified":"2024-02-09T11:55:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T16:55:36","slug":"genes-responsible-for-protecting-frogs-may-play-role-in-death-from-global-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//genes-responsible-for-protecting-frogs-may-play-role-in-death-from-global-disease/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238//","title":{"rendered":"Genes Responsible for Protecting Frogs May Play Role in Death from Global Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

For frogs dying of the invasive chytridiomycosis disease, the leading cause of amphibian deaths worldwide, the genes responsible for protecting them may actually be leading to their demise, according to a new study published today in the journal Molecular Ecology by Âé¶¹Ó³»­´«Ã½ and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) researchers./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n

The lowland leopard frog, found in river drainages in Arizona, is one of a few amphibian species in which some individuals survive infection by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis chytrid fungus (Bd) while other individuals do not/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u2014even when they live in the same local population./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n

In a study of lowland leopard frogs infected with Bd, the fungus that causes the disease chytridiomycosis or chytrid, researchers found that frogs that died from the disease had higher expression of major histocompatibility complex and other immune system genes than frogs that survived it./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n

Those genes help organisms fight off infections and foreign substances./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201cThis result was totally counterintuitive and the opposite of the pattern we expected to recover,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201d says Anna Savage, the study/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u2019s lead author, an associate professor in Âé¶¹Ó³»­´«Ã½/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u2019s Department of Biology and former postdoctoral fellow at SCBI/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u2019s Center for Conservation Genomics (CCG)./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201cMy previous research on these immune genes showed that some variants were associated with higher survival to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, so I hypothesized that those genes were enabling the frogs to have a stronger immune response that would kill the fungus,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201d she says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201cInstead, it seems like those stronger responses are linked to susceptibility, and the genes associating with survival are linked to reduced immune function./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/111238/n