Specific immune response of beetles adapts to bacteria

When the immune system fends off pathogens, this can happen in a very wide variety of ways. For example, the immune system's memory is able to distinguish a foreign protein with which the organism has already come into contact from another and to react with a corresponding antibody. Researchers have now investigated experimentally whether this ability of the immune system to specifically fend off pathogens can adapt in the course of evolution. To this end, they studied many successive generations of flour beetles - because insects can also specifically repel pathogens to a certain degree. After the researchers repeatedly confronted the insects and their progeny with bacteria, they observed that the beetles' immune system reacted more strongly after just a few generations. "Our study helps us to understand whether an immune system's specificity ability can adapt quickly to the conditions of repeated confrontation with pathogens," says Prof. Joachim Kurtz from Münster University, who is heading the study. The results might be able to help provide a better understanding of molecular processes that play a role in the innate immune memory in humans and that could perhaps be used for medical purposes.