In Drosophila, defense against foreign pathogens is mediated by an effective innate immune system, the cellular arm of which is composed of circulating hemocytes that engulf bacteria and encapsulate larger foreign particles. Three hemocyte types occur: plasmatocytes, crystal cells, and lamellocytes. The most abundant larval hemocyte type is the plasmatocyte, which is responsible for phagocytosi...

the mediterranean flour moth, ephestia kuehniella zeller, is one of the major pests in stored products worldwide. several problems assossiated with the use of conventional insecticides have strongly demonstrated the need for applying alternative safe compounds such as insect growth regulators (igrs). in the present study, growth regulating activity and hematological effects of pyriproxifen and ...

We report on experiments designed to more thoroughly document the roles of eicosanoids as crucial elements in cell spreading and on experiments designed to test the hypothesis that in vivo bacterial infections influence cell spreading on glass surfaces. We used hemocytes prepared from tobacco hornworms, Manduca sexta (L.) (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) and four species of bacteria ( Serratia marcesc...

The Drosophila larval cellular immune response involves cells (haemocytes) that can be recruited from a haematopoietic organ known as the lymph gland, as well as a sessile population of cells found just underneath the larval cuticle arranged in a segmental pattern. Overexpression of the Drosophila c-src homologue Src64B disrupts the sessile-haemocyte banding pattern. Though Src64B overexpressio...

Transdifferentiation is a conversion of an already differentiated cell type into another without the involvement stem cells. This transition well described in case vertebrate immune cells, as Drosophila melanogaster, which therefore serves suitable model to study process detail. In larva, latest single-cell sequencing methods enabled clusterization phagocytic blood plasmatocytes, are capable tr...

Virtually all species of coelomate animals contain blood cells that display a division of labor necessary for homeostasis. This functional partition depends upon the balance between proliferation and differentiation mostly accomplished in the hematopoietic organs. In Drosophila melanogaster, the lymph gland produces plasmatocytes and crystal cells that are not released until pupariation. Yet, t...

The primary immune response toward internal parasites and other large foreign objects that enter the insect hemocoel is encapsulation. Prior studies indicated that granular cells and plasmatocytes are the two hemocyte types required for capsule formation by the moth Pseudoplusia includens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Capsules formed by P. includens also have a defined architecture with primarily g...