ArticleThe Journal of animal ecology2020
Macronutrients modulate survival to infection and immunity in Drosophila.
Article in The Journal of animal ecology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Diet impacts the effects of thermal stress on infection outcomes.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Sex-specific effects of cereal-based diets on longevity and healthspan in Drosophila melanogaster.Biogerontology · 2026Article
- Protein-biased diets enhance immune responses but increase fungal susceptibility in desert locusts.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Harnessing Nutritional Niches to Explore Fungus-Animal Symbioses.Ecology letters · 2025Review
- Review
- High-protein diets reduce plasma pro-inflammatory cytokines following lipopolysaccharide challenge in Swiss Albino mice.PloS one · 2025Article
- Immune challenges and pathogen risks in edible insects: safeguarding health in space life-support systems.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Review
- The immunology of sickness metabolism.Cellular & molecular immunology · 2024Review
- Evolution of innate immunity: lessons from mammalian models shaping our current view of insect immunity.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2024Review
- Article
- Sugar restriction and blood ingestion shape divergent immune defense trajectories in the mosquito Aedes aegypti.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Feeding the fever: Complex host-pathogen dynamics along continuous resource gradients.Ecology and evolution · 2023Review
- Infection burdens and virulence under heat stress: ecological and evolutionary considerations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Interactions between innate immunity and insulin signaling affect resistance to infection in insects.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
- Feeding on an exotic host plant enhances plasma levels of phenoloxidase by modulating feeding efficiency in a specialist insect herbivore.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Evolution of immune function in response to dietary macronutrients in male and female decorated crickets.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Article
- Sugar-rich larval diet promotes lower adult pathogen load and higher survival after infection in a polyphagous fly.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Metabolic and immunological responses ofEcology and evolution · 2022Article
- Fly immunity comes of age: The utility ofFrontiers in aging · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Immunity and nutrition are two essential modulators of individual fitness. However, while the implications of immune function and nutrition on an individual's lifespan and reproduction are well established, the interplay between feeding behaviour, infection and immune function remains poorly understood. Asking how ecological and physiological factors affect immune responses and resistance to infections is a central theme of eco-immunology. In this study, we used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to investigate how infection through septic injury modulates nutritional intake and how macronutrient balance affects survival to infection by the pathogenic Gram-positive bacterium Micrococcus luteus. Our results show that infected flies maintain carbohydrate intake, but reduce protein intake, thereby shifting from a protein-to-carbohydrate (P:C) ratio of ~1:4 to ~1:10 relative to non-infected and sham-infected flies. Strikingly, the proportion of flies dying after M. luteus infection was significantly lower when flies were fed a low-P high-C diet, revealing that flies shift their macronutrient intake as means of nutritional self-medication against bacterial infection. These results are likely due to the effects of the macronutrient balance on the regulation of the constitutive expression of innate immune genes, as a low-P high-C diet was linked to an upregulation in the expression of key antimicrobial peptides. Together, our results reveal the intricate relationship between macronutrient intake and resistance to infection and integrate the molecular cross-talk between metabolic and immune pathways into the framework of nutritional immunology.
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