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Cellular immunity in the insect Galleria mellonella against insect non-parasitic nematodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

Masaya Ono  and
Toyoshi Yoshiga Open the ORCID record for Toyoshi Yoshiga [Opens in a new window]
Masaya Ono
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University, Saga, Japan The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan
Toyoshi Yoshiga*
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University, Saga, Japan The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: Toyoshi Yoshiga, E-mail: tyoshiga@cc.saga-u.ac.jp
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Abstract

Immunity to microbial infections is well understood; however, information regarding the immunity to parasitic multicellular organisms remains lacking. To understand innate host cellular immunity to nematodes, we compared the cellular response of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) larvae against the non-parasitic, bacterial-feeding nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and pathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora. When intact first-instar or dauer larvae of C. elegans were injected into a G. mellonella larva, most of the nematodes were alive and not confined by the surrounding reaction by insect haemocytes (encapsulation), similarly as the pathogenic nematode, whereas most of the heat-killed nematodes of both species were severely encapsulated by 24 h after inoculation. Other non-parasitic nematodes were also not encapsulated. Surprisingly, C. elegans injected into the insect haemocoel grew and propagated in the live insect, resulting in death of the host insect. Our results suggest that C. elegans has some basic mechanisms to evade immunity of G. mellonenlla and grow in the haemocoel.

Keywords

Caenorhabditis eleganscellularencapsulationGalleria mellonellahaemocyteimmuneinsectnematodeparasitismpathogen
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 146 , Issue 6 , May 2019 , pp. 708 - 715
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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