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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

A Galleria mellonella Oral Administration Model to Study Commensal-Induced Innate Immune Responses
Published on: March 21, 2019
Eicosanoids mediate Galleria mellonella cellular immune response to viral infection
Ender Büyükgüzel1, Hasan Tunaz, David Stanley
1Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Science, Karaelmas University, Zonguldak, Turkey.
Abstract:
Nodulation is the predominant insect cellular immune response to bacterial and fungal infections and it can also be induced by some viral infections. Treating seventh instar larvae of greater wax moth Galleria mellonella with Bovine herpes simplex virus-1 (BHSV-1) induced nodulation reactions in a dose-dependent manner. Because eicosanoids mediate nodulation reactions to bacterial and fungal infection, we hypothesized that eicosanoids also mediate nodulation reactions to viral challenge. To test this idea, we injected G. mellonella larvae with indomethacin, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug immediately prior to intrahemocoelic injection of BHSV-1. Relative to vehicle-treated controls, indomethacin-treated larvae produced significantly reduced numbers of nodules following viral infection (down from approximately 190 nodules/larva to <50 nodules/larva). In addition to injection treatments, increasing dietary indomethacin dosages (from 0.01% to 1%) were associated with decreasing nodulation (by 10-fold) and phenoloxidase activity (by 3-fold) reactions to BHSV-1 injection. We infer from these findings that cyclooxygenase products, prostaglandins, mediate nodulation response to viral infection in G. mellonella.
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