Transcriptome Analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans Lacking Heme Peroxidase SKPO-1 Reveals an Altered Response to Enterococcus faecalis

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is commonly used as a model organism in studies of development and the host immune response. The worm encodes twelve peroxidase-cyclooxygenase superfamily members. SKPO-1 was localized to the hypodermis of the animals where it also affected cuticle development. In this work, a better understanding of how loss of skpo-1 impacts both sensitivity to pathogen as well as cuticle development was sought by subjecting a deletion mutant of skpo-1 to transcriptome analysis using RNA sequencing following exposure to control (Escherichia coli) and pathogenic (E. faecalis) feeding conditions. C.elegans transcriptome from two different bacterial backgrounds (E. coli and E. faecalis) and two different genetic backgrounds (N2 wild type, and skpo-1 mutant).