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Recognition and elimination of diversified pathogens in insect defense systems

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Summary

The elimination of infectious non-self by the host defense systems of multicellular organisms requires a variety of recognition and effector molecules. The diversity is generated in somatic cells or encoded in the germ-line. In adaptive immunity in jawed vertebrates, the diversity of immunoglobulins and antigen receptors is generated by gene rearrangements in somatic cells. In innate immunity, various effector molecules and pattern recognition receptors, such as antimicrobial peptides and peptidoglycan recognition proteins, are encoded in the germ-line of multicellular organisms, including insects and jawed vertebrates. In the present review, we discuss how insect host defense systems recognize and eliminate a multitude of microbes via germ-line-encoded molecules, including recent findings that a Drosophila member of the immunoglobulin superfamily is extensively diversified by alternative splicing in somatic immune cells and participates in the elimination of bacteria.

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Abbreviations

DAP:

diaminopimelic acid

Dscam:

Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule

GNBP:

Gram-negative binding protein

IKK:

IκB kinase

Ig:

immunoglobulin

GlcNAc:

N-acetylglucosamine

MurNAc:

N-acetylmuramic acid

NF-κB:

nuclear factor κB

PGRP:

peptidoglycan recognition protein

PPAE:

proPO activating enzyme

proPO:

prophenoloxidase

TLR:

Toll-like receptor

TNF:

tumor necrosis factor

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  1. Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Shoichiro Kurata

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Kurata, S. Recognition and elimination of diversified pathogens in insect defense systems. Mol Divers 10, 599–605 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11030-006-9032-6

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