Macrophages and cellular immunity in Drosophila melanogaster.
The invertebrate Drosophila melanogaster has been a powerful model for understanding blood cell development and immunity. Drosophila is a holometabolous insect, which transitions through a series of life stages from embryo, larva and pupa to adulthood. In spite of this, remarkable parallels exist between Drosophila and vertebrate macrophages, both in terms of development and function. More than 90% of Drosophila blood cells (hemocytes) are macrophages (plasmatocytes), making this highly tractable genetic system attractive for studying a variety of questions in macrophage biology. In vertebrates, recent findings revealed that macrophages have two independent origins: self-renewing macrophages, which reside and proliferate in local microenvironments in a variety of tissues, and macrophages of the monocyte lineage, which derive from hematopoietic stem or progenitor cells. Like vertebrates, Drosophila possesses two macrophage lineages with a conserved dual ontogeny. These parallels allow us to take advantage of the Drosophila model when investigating macrophage lineage specification, maintenance and amplification, and the induction of macrophages and their progenitors by local microenvironments and systemic cues. Beyond macrophage development, Drosophila further serves as a paradigm for understanding the mechanisms underlying macrophage function and cellular immunity in infection, tissue homeostasis and cancer, throughout development and adult life.
Department of Cell and Tissue Biology.
Katrina S
KS
Gold
Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research; Department of Cell and Tissue Biology; Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States. Electronic address: katja.brueckner@ucsf.edu.
Katja
K
Brückner
D000818:Animals; D001773:Blood Cells / Q000276:immunology; D019070:Cell Lineage; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology*; D007111:Immunity, Cellular; D008264:Macrophages / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*
Antimicrobial peptide; Crystal cell; Development; Drosophila melanogaster; Hematopoiesis; Hematopoietic pockets; Hemocyte; Immunity; Innate immunity; Lamellocyte; Lymph gland; Macrophage; Microenvironment; Monocyte; Plasmatocyte; Self-renewing tissue macrophage; Signaling pathway; Systemic signal