Genetic determinants of antiviral immunity in dipteran insects - compiling the experimental evidence.

The genetic basis of antiviral immunity in dipteran insects is extensively studied in Drosophila melanogaster and advanced technologies for genetic manipulation allow a better characterization of immune responses also in non-model insect species. Especially, immunity in vector mosquitoes is recently in the spotlight, due to the medical impact that these insects have by transmitting viruses and other pathogens. Here, we review the current state of experimental evidence that supports antiviral functions for immune genes acting in different cellular pathways. We discuss the well-characterized RNA interference mechanism along with the less well-defined JAK-STAT, Toll and IMD signaling pathways. Furthermore, we highlight the initial evidence for antiviral activity observed for the autophagy pathway, transcriptional pausing, as well as piRNA production from endogenous viral elements. We focus our review on studies from Drosophila, and mosquito species from the lineages Aedes, Culex and Anopheles, which contain major vector species responsible for virus transmission.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Developmental and Comparative Immunology

• Publication date

  2021-01-18

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.dci.2021.104010PMID 33476667
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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