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PMID: 11854512 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Constitutive expression of a single antimicrobial peptide can restore wild-type resistance to infection in immunodeficient Drosophila mutants.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 99 ·No. 4 ·2002-02-19 ·Pages 2152-7

Tzou P, Reichhart JM, Lemaitre B

Abstract

One of the characteristics of the host defense of insects is the rapid synthesis of a variety of potent antibacterial and antifungal peptides. To date, seven types of inducible antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been characterized in Drosophila. The importance of these peptides in host defense is supported by the observation that flies deficient for the Toll or Immune deficiency (Imd) pathway, which affects AMP gene expression, are extremely susceptible to microbial infection. Here we have developed a genetic approach to address the functional relevance of a defined antifungal or antibacterial peptide in the host defense of Drosophila adults. We have expressed AMP genes via the control of the UAS/GAL4 system in imd; spätzle double mutants that do not express any known endogenous AMP gene. Our results clearly show that constitutive expression of a single peptide in some cases is sufficient to rescue imd; spätzle susceptibility to microbial infection, highlighting the important role of AMPs in Drosophila adult host defense.

MeSH Terms
Animals Anti-Bacterial Agents/chemistry,pharmacology Anti-Infective Agents/pharmacology Antifungal Agents/pharmacology Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides/chemistry Bacterial Infections/drug therapy Blotting, Northern Drosophila melanogaster/genetics Mass Spectrometry Mutation Mycoses/drug therapy Plasmids/metabolism Time Factors Transgenes
Chemicals
Anti-Bacterial Agents Anti-Infective Agents Antifungal Agents Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides
Authors & Affiliations
3 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Tzou Phoebe
Centre de Génétique Moléculaire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Reichhart Jean-Marc
Lemaitre Bruno
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
0027-8424
DOI
10.1073/pnas.042411999
Published
2002-02-19
Pages
2152-7
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC122334
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.042411999 PMC Full Text View journal details
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