A PAX6-regulated receptor tyrosine kinase pairs with a pseudokinase to activate immune defense upon oomycete recognition in .

Oomycetes were recently discovered as natural pathogens of and pathogen recognition alone was shown to be sufficient to activate a protective transcriptional program characterized by the expression of multiple () genes. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying oomycete recognition in animals remain fully unknown. We performed here a forward genetic screen to uncover regulators of gene induction and found several independent loss-of-function alleles of and which encode receptor tyrosine kinases belonging to the -specific KIN-16 family.

Chemosensory Neurons Modulate the Response to Oomycete Recognition in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Understanding how animals detect and respond to pathogen threats is central to dissecting mechanisms of host immunity. The oomycetes represent a diverse eukaryotic group infecting various hosts from nematodes to humans. We have previously shown that Caenorhabditis elegans mounts a defense response consisting of the induction of chitinase-like (chil) genes in the epidermis to combat infection by its natural oomycete pathogen Myzocytiopsis humicola.

The Effect of Larval Diet on Adult Survival, Swarming Activity and Copulation Success in Male Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae).

Control of Aedes aegypti (L.) (Diptera: Culicidae) populations is vital for reducing the transmission of several pervasive human diseases. The success of new vector control technologies will be influenced by the fitness of laboratory-reared transgenic males.