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Updated: Oct 17, 2026

Assessing the Cellular Immune Response of the Fruit Fly, Drosophila melanogaster, Using an In Vivo Phagocytosis Assay
Published on: April 10, 2019
Signaling mechanisms in the antimicrobial host defense of Drosophila
1UPR 9022 CNRS, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Strasbourg, 67084, France. JL.Imler@ibmc.u-strasbg.fr
Abstract:
Drosophila has appeared in recent years as a powerful model to study innate immunity. Several papers published in the past year shed light on the role of the three Rel proteins Dorsal, Dif and Relish in the regulation of antimicrobial peptide expression. In addition, the discovery that a blood serine protease inhibitor is involved in the control of the antifungal response indicates that Toll is activated upon triggering of a proteolytic cascade and does not function as a Drosophila pattern recognition receptor.
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