The Avoided Target: The Ceratitis capitata Cellular Encapsulation Response

The three most common and most successful methods for controlling fruit-fly pest species (particularly Ceratitis capitata) are the sterile-insect technique, insecticide use, and biological control. Yet while innovative research in the first two have meant significant improvement in the efficiency of these techniques over the past two decades, by comparison, improvements in the efficiency of biological-control techniques have lagged. It is asserted that such will continue to be the case until more researchers systematically address how to overcome, evade, deactivate the immune systems of target host species, in particular the cellular encapsulation response. The encapsulation response to wasp parasitization in both Drosophila and Ceratitis are reviewed. It is suggested that the past four decades of cellular, molecular and genetic research in Drosophila immunity and defense against parasitoid wasps can serve as a springboard for rapid significant improvement of our present, nearly non-existent model of Ceratitis immunity.