Anti-viral Responses in Insects: Apoptosis and Humoral Responses
Rollie J. Clem, Holly J.R. Popham and Kent S. Shelby
from: Insect Virology (Edited by: Sassan Asgari and Karyn N. Johnson). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2010)
Abstract
Insects are subject to infection by many different kinds of DNA and RNA viruses. These include viruses that are pathogenic to insects, as well as vertebrate pathogens that are vectored by insects. Although the study of anti-viral responses in insects has lagged behind studies of responses to other types of pathogens, progress in this area has begun to rapidly accelerate over the past several years. Within the field of insect pathology, anti-viral responses in insects have traditionally been categorized as falling into one of three types: physical barriers, cellular immunity, and humoral immunity. However, it has become clear in recent years that a fourth type of response exists, called intracellular immunity. Intracellular immunity is particularly relevant to virus infection because it operates within infected cells, and includes responses such as RNA interference and, as we propose here, apoptosis. In this chapter, we discuss the current understanding of anti-viral responses in insects, focusing mainly on two of the best understood types of responses, apoptosis and humoral immunity read more ...
