Evolution of a cellular immune response in Drosophila: a phenotypic and genomic comparative analysis.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the genomic basis of evolutionary adaptation requires insight into the molecular basis underlying phenotypic variation. However, even changes in molecular pathways associated with extreme variation, gains and losses of specific phenotypes, remain largely uncharacterized. Here, we investigate the large interspecific differences in the ability to survive infection by parasitoids across 11 Drosophila species and identify genomic changes associated with gains and losses of parasitoid resistance. We show that a cellular immune defense, encapsulation, and the production of a specialized blood cell, lamellocytes, are restricted to a sublineage of Drosophila, but that encapsulation is absent in one species of this sublineage, Drosophila sechellia. Our comparative analyses of hemopoie

SUBMITTER: Salazar-Jaramillo L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3942026 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature