Juvenile Hormone Suppresses Resistance to Infection in Mated Female Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Hormonal signaling provides metazoans with the ability to regulate development, growth, metabolism, immune defense, and reproduction in response to internal and external stimuli. The use of hormones as central regulators of physiology makes them prime candidates for mediating allocation of resources to competing biological functions (i.e., hormonal pleiotropy) [1]. In animals, reproductive effort often results in weaker immune responses (e.g., [2-4]), and this reduction is sometimes linked to hormone signaling (see [5-7]). In the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, mating and the receipt of male seminal fluid proteins results in reduced resistance to a systemic bacterial infection [8, 9]. Here, we evaluate whether the immunosuppressive effect of reproduction in female D. melanogaster is at

SUBMITTER: Schwenke RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5319889 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature