Chronic bacterial infections exert metabolic costs in Drosophila melanogaster.

Bacterial infections can substantially impact host metabolic health as a result of the direct and indirect demands of sustaining an immune response and of nutrient piracy by the pathogen itself. Drosophila melanogaster and other insects that survive a sublethal bacterial infection often carry substantial pathogen burdens for the remainder of life. In this study, we asked whether these chronic infections exact metabolic costs for the host, and how these costs scale with the severity of chronic infection.