bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/457168; this version posted October 30, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. 1 1 2 The role of fibroblast growth factor signalling in Echinococcus 3 multilocularis development and host-parasite interaction 4 5 Sabine Förster1, Uriel Koziol1,2, Tina Schäfer1, Raphael Duvoisin1, Katia Cailliau3, Mathieu 6 Vanderstraete4, Colette Dissous4, and Klaus Brehm1* 7 8 1University of Würzburg, Institute of Hygiene and Microbiology, Josef-Schneider-Strasse 2, 9 D-97080 Würzburg, Germany 10 2Universidad de la República, Facultad de Ciencias, Sección Biología Celular, Montevideo, 11 Uruguay 12 3CNRS UMR 8576, University of Lille, 59650, Villeneuve d’Asq, France 13 4Center for Infection and Immunology of Lille, Inserm U1019, CNRS-UMR 8204, University 14 of Lille, Lille, France 15 16 Short title: Host FGF stimulates Echinococcus larval development 17 18 *Corresponding author. 19 Email:
[email protected] (KB) 20 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/457168; this version posted October 30, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. 2 21 Abstract 22 Background: Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a lethal zoonosis caused by the metacestode 23 larva of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis.