ArticleNature communications2016
Immune modulation enables a specialist insect to benefit from antibacterial withanolides in its host plant.
Article in Nature communications, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metabolism of Epoxidised Withanolides by a Generalist and a Specialist Insect Species.ChemistryOpen · 2025Article
- Glucosinolate - Guided Oviposition Enhances Immunity in the Specialist Herbivore, Plutella Xylostella.Journal of chemical ecology · 2025Article
- Comparative Transcriptomics RevealedPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Mixtures of Milkweed Cardenolides Protect Monarch Butterflies against Parasites.Journal of chemical ecology · 2024Article
- No-cost meals might not exist for insects feeding on toxic plants.Biology open · 2023Review
- Jasmonic Acid-Treated Cotton Plant Leaves Impair Larvae Growth Performance, Activities of Detoxification Enzymes, and Insect Humoral Immunity of Cotton Bollworm.Neotropical entomology · 2022Article
- Use of an exotic host plant shifts immunity, chemical defense, and viral burden in wild populations of a specialist insect herbivore.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- The Physalis floridana genome provides insights into the biochemical and morphological evolution of Physalis fruits.Horticulture research · 2021Article
- The effects of host plant species and larval density on immune function in the polyphagous mothEcology and evolution · 2021Article
- The Effect of Phenoloxidase Activity on Survival Is Host Plant Dependent in Virus-Infected Caterpillars.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2020Article
- Tri-trophic interactions: bridging species, communities and ecosystems.Ecology letters · 2019Review
- Importance of ROS-mediated autophagy in determining apoptotic cell death induced by physapubescin B.Redox biology · 2017Article
- The Anti-inflammatory Activities of Two Major Withanolides from Physalis minima Via Acting on NF-κB, STAT3, and HO-1 in LPS-Stimulated RAW264.7 Cells.Inflammation · 2017Article
- Stereo- and region-specific biotransformation of physapubescin by four fungal strains.Journal of natural medicines · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The development of novel plant chemical defenses and counter adaptations by herbivorous insect could continually drive speciation, producing more insect specialists than generalists. One approach to test this hypothesis is to compare closely related generalist and specialist species to reveal the associated costs and benefits of these different adaptive strategies. We use the specialized moth Heliothis subflexa, which feeds exclusively on plants in the genus Physalis, and its close generalist relative H. virescens. Specialization on Physalis plants necessitates the ability to tolerate withanolides, the secondary metabolites of Physalis species that are known to have feeding deterrent and immune inhibiting properties for other insects. Here we find that only H. subflexa benefits from the antibacterial properties of withanolides, and thereby gains a higher tolerance of the pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis. We argue that the specialization in H. subflexa has been guided to a large extent by a unique role of plant chemistry on ecological immunology.
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