title: Loss of Hemolectin reduces the survival of Drosophila larvae after wounding.
abstract: Coagulation involving both hemocytes and humoral factors is important for insect survival and immune defense. Hemolectin is a major larval clotting factor in Drosophila, and hemolymph from hml mutants does not clot ex vivo. Yet surprisingly third instar hml larvae survived injury as well as controls. The number of hemocytes in circulation changes during larval development. Reasoning that this could affect coagulation, we studied larval survival after injury at different stages. We found that hml larvae survived less than controls when injured during the feeding stage with fewer hemocytes. This important in vivo result reinforces the role of Hemolectin in larval hemostasis. A subtle effect of hml on immunity was found in adults. Similar experiments on hml mutant larvae gave different results, but feeding stage hml larvae were differentially sensitive to infections with different strains of Serratia marcescens.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biology, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA.
authors.forename: Huan-Jui
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Immanuel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dhanasingh
authors.forename: Xuewen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gou
authors.forename: Amy M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.forename: Mitchell S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Dushay
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001777:Blood Coagulation; D004330:Drosophila / Q000276:immunology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D006487:Hemostasis; D007814:Larva / Q000276:immunology; D037102:Lectins / Q000276:immunology*; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C476120:Hml protein, Drosophila; D037102:Lectins