Divergent Transcriptional Responses to Physiological and Xenobiotic Stress in Giardia duodenalis

Understanding how parasites respond to stress can help to identify essential biological processes. Giardia duodenalis is a parasitic protist that infects the human gastrointestinal tract and causes 200 to 300 million cases of diarrhea annually. Metronidazole, a major antigiardial drug, is thought to cause oxidative damage within the infective trophozoite form. However, treatment efficacy is suboptimal, due partly to metronidazole-resistant infections. To elucidate conserved and stress-specific responses, we calibrated sublethal metronidazole, hydrogen peroxide, and thermal stresses to exert approximately equal pressure on trophozoite growth and compared transcriptional responses after 24 h of exposure. We identified 252 genes that were differentially transcribed in response to all three stressors, including glycolytic and DNA repair enzymes, a mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, high-cysteine membrane proteins, flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) synthetase, and histone modification enzymes. Transcriptional responses appeared to diverge according to physiological or xenobiotic stress. Downregulation of the antioxidant system and alpha-giardins was observed only under metronidazole-induced stress, whereas upregulation of GARP-like transcription factors and their subordinate genes was observed in response to hydrogen peroxide and thermal stressors. Limited evidence was found in support of stress-specific response elements upstream of differentially transcribed genes; however, antisense derepression and differential regulation of RNA interference machinery suggest multiple epigenetic mechanisms of transcriptional control.