Abstract
Simple SummaryMany insect and tick species are serious pests, because insects damage crop plants and, along with ticks, transmit a wide range of human and animal diseases. One way of controlling these pests is by impairing their immune system, which protects them from bacterial, fungal, and viral infections. An important tool for studying immunity is using long-lasting cell cultures, known as cell lines. These lines can be frozen and thawed at will to be used in automated tests, and they provide consistent results over years. Questions that can be asked using cell lines include: How do insects or ticks recognize when they have been infected and by what organism? What kinds of defensive strategies do they use to contain or kill infectious agents? This article reviews research with insect or tick cell lines to answer these questions, as well as other questions relating to immunity. This review also discusses future research strategies for working with cell lines.Innate immune responses are essential to maintaining insect and tick health and are the primary defense against pathogenic viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Cell line research is a powerful method for understanding how invertebrates mount defenses against pathogenic organisms and testing hypotheses on how these responses occur. In particular, immortal arthropod cell lines are valuable tools, providing a tractable, high-throughput, cost-effective, and consistent platform to investigate the mechanisms underpinning insect and tick immune responses. The research results inform the controls of medically and agriculturally important insects and ticks. This review presents several examples of how cell lines have facilitated research into multiple aspects of the invertebrate immune response to pathogens and other foreign agents, as well as comments on possible future research directions in these robust systems.
Highlights
Invertebrate innate immunity is a generalized reaction that does not depend on prior immune experiences
Infections are detected via pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) [11,12,13], which activate pathogen-specific signaling pathways [9,13,14]: the Toll pathway, the Immune deficiency (IMD) pathway (Gram-negative), with some exceptions in both cases, and the Janus Kinase and Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (JAK/STAT) pathway [15]
Ha Lee et al [34] reported that bacterial peptidoglycans (PGN) were more potent activators of the antimicrobial protein (AMP) gene cecropin B (CecB) than lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in the Bombyx mori cell line NISES-BoMo-Cam1
Summary
Invertebrate innate immunity is a generalized reaction that does not depend on prior immune experiences. Infections are detected via pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) [11,12,13], which activate pathogen-specific signaling pathways [9,13,14]: the Toll pathway (for Gram-positive bacteria and fungi), the Immune deficiency (IMD) pathway (Gram-negative), with some exceptions in both cases, and the Janus Kinase and Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (JAK/STAT) pathway [15] Larger invaders, such as parasitoids, are encapsulated by several layers of hemocytes, which become melanized and connected to internal structures [16]. Ha Lee et al [34] reported that bacterial peptidoglycans (PGN) were more potent activators of the antimicrobial protein (AMP) gene cecropin B (CecB) than lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in the Bombyx mori cell line NISES-BoMo-Cam1 They found that PGN from Escherichia coli stimulated the expression of several antibacterial peptide genes and other genes, whereas PGN from Micrococcus luteus activated a few genes. They reported that exposing the cells to these lipids protected the tick cells from infection by two rickettsiarelated bacteria, Anaplasma phagocytophilum and A. marginale
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