Field: Immunology and Microbiology › ImmunologyType: No effect foundArea: insect immunityTarget: Drosophila Toll-9 receptorStage: preclinical
Hypothesis
Toll-9, the fruit fly receptor most similar to mammalian Toll-like receptors, would keep up a basal antimicrobial defence and help fight bacterial infection.
What failed
Flies with a complete loss of Toll-9 kept their basal antimicrobial response and mounted a normal immune response to bacterial infection.
Broken assumption
The fly receptor that looks most like mammalian Toll-like receptors also has an immune role.
Why
The abstract does not give a cause. Earlier over-expression results did not reflect what the receptor does at normal levels.
From the published paper: Narbonne-Reveau et al. PLoS ONE, 2011. ↗CC BY