Anita A Koshy

Anita A Koshy

Associate Professor
Associate Professor, Immunobiology
Associate Professor, Evelyn F Mcknight Brain Institute
Associate Professor, Neuroscience - GIDP
Associate Professor, Medicine
Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-1696

Work Summary

We study how a common intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, persists in, and potentially changes, the mammalian brain. Understanding the Toxoplasma-brain interaction offers the opportunity to develop better therapies to treat toxoplasmosis as well as giving new insights into how to manipulate the brain immune response which has been implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases.

Research Interest

Anita Koshy, MD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology and the Department of Immunobiology, and an affiliate of the Clinical Translational Science Institute and the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. Clinically, Dr. Koshy is a recognized expert in the area of Infectious Diseases of the Nervous System, and has co-authored 4 chapters on this subject. Dr. Koshy’s lab focuses on understanding how a common human parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, is able to persist in the mammalian brain (including in up to 1/3 of the human population.) The goals of this work are to: 1) improve treatments for patients with symptomatic toxoplasmosis (there are no drugs to cure patients of Toxoplasma) and 2) use the co-evolution between the parasite and the mammalian CNS to better understand how immune responses in brain can be triggered and aborted. The latter research may have broad applicability to disorders of the brain in which the immune response is dysfunctional; these disorders include Multiple Sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Keywords: Neuroscience, Infectious Disease, Parasitology

Publications

Cekanaviciute, E., Dietrich, H. K., Axtell, R. C., Williams, A. M., Egusquiza, R., Wai, K. M., Koshy, A. A., & Buckwalter, M. S. (2014). Astrocytic TGF-β signaling limits inflammation and reduces neuronal damage during central nervous system Toxoplasma infection. Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950), 193(1), 139-49.

The balance between controlling infection and limiting inflammation is particularly precarious in the brain because of its unique vulnerability to the toxic effects of inflammation. Astrocytes have been implicated as key regulators of neuroinflammation in CNS infections, including infection with Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan parasite that naturally establishes a chronic CNS infection in mice and humans. In CNS toxoplasmosis, astrocytes are critical to controlling parasite growth. They secrete proinflammatory cytokines and physically encircle parasites. However, the molecular mechanisms used by astrocytes to limit neuroinflammation during toxoplasmic encephalitis have not yet been identified. TGF-β signaling in astrocytes is of particular interest because TGF-β is universally upregulated during CNS infection and serves master regulatory and primarily anti-inflammatory functions. We report in this study that TGF-β signaling is activated in astrocytes during toxoplasmic encephalitis and that inhibition of astrocytic TGF-β signaling increases immune cell infiltration, uncouples proinflammatory cytokine and chemokine production from CNS parasite burden, and increases neuronal injury. Remarkably, we show that the effects of inhibiting astrocytic TGF-β signaling are independent of parasite burden and the ability of GFAP(+) astrocytes to physically encircle parasites.

Mendez, O. A., & Koshy, A. A. (2017). Toxoplasma gondii: Entry, association, and physiologic influences on the central nervous system. Plos Pathogens.
Christian, D. A., Koshy, A. A., Reuter, M. A., Betts, M. R., Boothroyd, J. C., & Hunter, C. A. (2014). Use of transgenic parasites and host reporters to dissect events that promote interleukin-12 production during toxoplasmosis. Infection and immunity, 82(10), 4056-67.

The intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii has multiple strategies to alter host cell function, including the injection of rhoptry proteins into the cytosol of host cells as well as bystander populations, but the consequence of these events is unclear. Here, a reporter system using fluorescent parasite strains that inject Cre recombinase with their rhoptry proteins (Toxoplasma-Cre) was combined with Ai6 Cre reporter mice to identify cells that have been productively infected, that have been rhoptry injected but lack the parasite, or that have phagocytosed T. gondii. The ability to distinguish these host-parasite interactions was then utilized to dissect the events that lead to the production of interleukin-12 p40 (IL-12p40), which is required for resistance to T. gondii. In vivo, the use of invasion-competent or invasion-inhibited (phagocytosed) parasites with IL-12p40 (YET40) reporter mice revealed that dendritic cell (DC) and macrophage populations that phagocytose the parasite or are infected can express IL-12p40 but are not the major source, as larger numbers of uninfected cells secrete this cytokine. Similarly, the use of Toxoplasma-Cre parasite strains indicated that dendritic cells and inflammatory monocytes untouched by the parasite and not cells injected by the parasite are the primary source of IL-12p40. These results imply that a soluble host or parasite factor is responsible for the bulk of IL-12p40 production in vivo, rather than cellular interactions with T. gondii that result in infection, infection and clearance, injection of rhoptry proteins, or phagocytosis of the parasite.

Han, S., Melichar, H. J., Coombes, J. L., Chan, S. W., Koshy, A. A., Boothroyd, J. C., Barton, G. M., & Robey, E. A. (2014). Internalization and TLR-dependent type I interferon production by monocytes in response to Toxoplasma gondii. Immunology and cell biology, 92(10), 872-81.

The classic anti-viral cytokine interferon (IFN)-β can be induced during parasitic infection, but relatively little is know about the cell types and signaling pathways involved. Here we show that inflammatory monocytes (IMs), but not neutrophils, produce IFN-β in response to T. gondii infection. This difference correlated with the mode of parasite entry into host cells, with phagocytic uptake predominating in IMs and active invasion predominating in neutrophils. We also show that expression of IFN-β requires phagocytic uptake of the parasite by IMs, and signaling through Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and MyD88. Finally, we show that IMs are major producers of IFN-β in mesenteric lymph nodes following in vivo oral infection of mice, and mice lacking the receptor for type I IFN-1 show higher parasite loads and reduced survival. Our data reveal a TLR and internalization-dependent pathway in IMs for IFN-β induction to a non-viral pathogen.

Hidano, S., Randall, L. M., Dawson, L., Dietrich, H. K., Konradt, C., Klover, P. J., John, B., Harris, T. H., Fang, Q., Turek, B., Kobayashi, T., Hennighausen, L., Beiting, D. P., Koshy, A. A., & Hunter, C. A. (2016). STAT1 Signaling in Astrocytes Is Essential for Control of Infection in the Central Nervous System. mBio, 7(6).

The local production of gamma interferon (IFN-γ) is important to control Toxoplasma gondii in the brain, but the basis for these protective effects is not fully understood. The studies presented here reveal that the ability of IFN-γ to inhibit parasite replication in astrocytes in vitro is dependent on signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and that mice that specifically lack STAT1 in astrocytes are unable to limit parasite replication in the central nervous system (CNS). This susceptibility is associated with a loss of antimicrobial pathways and increased cyst formation in astrocytes. These results identify a critical role for astrocytes in limiting the replication of an important opportunistic pathogen.