Effective but Costly, Evolved Mechanisms of Defense against a Virulent Opportunistic Pathogen in <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic> Export

@article{citeulike:4372254, abstract = {<title>Author Summary</title> <p>The fruit fly is commonly used as a model organism to understand the mechanistic nature of the immune response to bacterial pathogens. The fly is also commonly used to understand what immunity costs hosts in terms of other traits such as life span and reproductive success. Here, we examine these two questions together in flies selected for improved defense against the bacterium <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic>. We show that selected flies develop from egg to adult more rapidly than unselected flies. It appears that the selected flies invest more heavily in a wing of the immune system that involves engulfment and walling off of invading bacteria. This investment can also explain the shift in developmental rate, as these two biological pathways are controlled by shared sets of genes. These latter two findings are counter to the conventional wisdom and reveal a costly, but effective, means for the fly to circumvent the virulence of <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic>. This bacterium is normally deadly, as it has specific mechanisms to evade the host immune response. Our work is significant for demonstrating a pathway for flies to survive bacterial infection with <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic> and for offering a reason why such a defense is not normally present in wild populations.</p>}, author = {Ye, Yixin H. and Chenoweth, Stephen F. and Mcgraw, Elizabeth A.}, citeulike-article-id = {4372254}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000385}, day = {17}, doi = {10.1371/journal.ppat.1000385}, journal = {PLoS Pathog}, keywords = {antibacterial, bacteria, drosophila, evolution, fitness, genome, imd, innate\_immunity, insect, toll, transmission}, month = {April}, number = {4}, pages = {e1000385+}, posted-at = {2009-04-21 15:16:55}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {Effective but Costly, Evolved Mechanisms of Defense against a Virulent Opportunistic Pathogen in <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic>}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000385}, volume = {5}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4372254 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4372254 N2 - <title>Author Summary</title> <p>The fruit fly is commonly used as a model organism to understand the mechanistic nature of the immune response to bacterial pathogens. The fly is also commonly used to understand what immunity costs hosts in terms of other traits such as life span and reproductive success. Here, we examine these two questions together in flies selected for improved defense against the bacterium <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic>. We show that selected flies develop from egg to adult more rapidly than unselected flies. It appears that the selected flies invest more heavily in a wing of the immune system that involves engulfment and walling off of invading bacteria. This investment can also explain the shift in developmental rate, as these two biological pathways are controlled by shared sets of genes. These latter two findings are counter to the conventional wisdom and reveal a costly, but effective, means for the fly to circumvent the virulence of <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic>. This bacterium is normally deadly, as it has specific mechanisms to evade the host immune response. Our work is significant for demonstrating a pathway for flies to survive bacterial infection with <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic> and for offering a reason why such a defense is not normally present in wild populations.</p> IS - 4 JF - PLoS Pathog TI - Effective but Costly, Evolved Mechanisms of Defense against a Virulent Opportunistic Pathogen in <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic> PB - Public Library of Science VL - 5 SP - e1000385 KW - antibacterial KW - bacteria KW - drosophila KW - evolution KW - fitness KW - genome KW - imd KW - innate_immunity KW - insect KW - toll KW - transmission AU - Ye, Yixin AU - Chenoweth, Stephen AU - Mcgraw, Elizabeth PY - 2009/04/17/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000385 ER -