Effector specificity and function in Drosophila innate immunity: Getting AMPed and dropping Boms

• Published in: PLoS pathogens Vol. 16; no. 5; p. e1008480
• Main Authors: Lin, Samuel J H, Cohen, Lianne B, Wasserman, Steven A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 28-05-2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Antiinfectives and antibacterials; Antimicrobial peptides; Bacteria; Biology and Life Sciences; Developmental biology; Drosophila; Fungi; Gene disruption; Gene families; Genes; Genomes; Gram-negative bacteria; Gram-positive bacteria; Health aspects; Infections; Innate immunity; Insects; Medicine and Health Sciences; Microorganisms; Mutation; Pathogens; Pearls; Peptides; Phenotypes; Point mutation; Reporter gene; Research and Analysis Methods; Stochasticity; United States; La Jolla California; United States > US; California
• ISSN: 1553-7374; 1553-7366; 1553-7374
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008480

[...]researchers have characterized novel and essential effectors, rewritten the individual and collective roles of antimicrobial peptides, and identified stochastic variation and persistent infection as common features of microbial infection. [...]many belong to gene families, potentially minimizing the loss-of-function phenotype for an individual gene mutation. [...]immune mutant screens have typically assayed for loss of reporter gene activation and thus identified lesions only in genes upstream of effector induction [see, e.g., 11,12]. In the case of the Imd pathway, flies simultaneously deleted for the majority of induced AMP genes are as susceptible to gram-negative bacteria as those lacking all pathway function [14]. [...]for many gram-negative bacteria, individual gene disruption is without consequence, supporting the idea that organisms express sets of AMPs that overlap in specificity and function (Fig 1C).