Book Description

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is an established tool to study mechanisms of innate immunity. Drosophila flies and larvae launch elegant humoral and cellular innate immune responses against bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. The humoral immune response is based on microbial recognition primarily by peptidoglycan recognition proteins leading to the production of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). In the past few decades, Drosophilists have dissected how flies react to systemic bacterial and fungal infections at the molecular level and shown how these mechanisms are conserved from human to man. Fly humoral immune response is mainly mediated by two evolutionarily conserved NF-κB signaling pathways, the Toll and the Immune deficiency (Imd) pathways. The discovery of the Toll receptor as a key regulator of immune response, first in cultured Drosophila cells and then in Drosophila in vivo, formed the basis of the Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) research in humans and mammals. More recently, this field has broadened considerably, including e.g. the antimicrobial responses taking place in the gut. Another interesting aspect related to innate immunity is the antiviral immune mechanisms found in Drosophila. Best understood are the mechanisms based on RNAi, primarily against RNA virus infections. More recently, the evolutionarily conserved molecule STING has been shown to integrate responses against both viruses and bacteria.