Specificity of oral immune priming in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. (13th December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Futo, Momir; Sell, Marie P.; Kutzer, Megan A. M.; Kurtz, Joachim
• Is Part Of: Biology letters. Volume 13:Number 12(2017)
• Publication Date: 2017-12-13
• Subjects: innate immunity -- specific immune memory -- invertebrate immune priming -- Bacillus thuringiensis -- Tribolium castaneum; Biology -- Periodicals; 570.5
• DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0632
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1744-9561

Abstract

Abstract : Immune specificity is the degree to which a host's immune system discriminates among various pathogens or antigenic variants. Vertebrate immune memory is highly specific due to antibody responses. On the other hand, some invertebrates show immune priming, i.e. improved survival after secondary exposure to a previously encountered pathogen. Until now, specificity of priming has only been demonstrated via the septic infection route or when live pathogens were used for priming. Therefore, we tested for specificity in the oral priming route in the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum . For priming, we used pathogen-free supernatants derived from three different strains of the entomopathogen, Bacillus thuringiensis, which express different Cry toxin variants known for their toxicity against this beetle. Subsequent exposure to the infective spores showed that oral priming was specific for two naturally occurring strains, while a third engineered strain did not induce any priming effect. Our data demonstrate that oral immune priming with a non-infectious bacterial agent can be specific, but the priming effect is not universal across all bacterial strains.