A study in host-pathogen coevolution and immune priming using laboratory populations of drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Organisms encounter various pathogens during their lifetime. Generating immune responses to combat these pathogenic attacks is critical to an organism’s fitness. This results in complex interactions between hosts and pathogens. In my thesis, I have addressed several important questions related to host-pathogen interactions. A major part of my work encompasses studying coevolutionary interactions between hosts and the pathogens. I compared a scenario of one-sided host evolution against a pathogen with a scenario where host and the pathogen coevolve. I used experimental evolutionary approach for this comparison and showed that these two scenarios can potentially be different. Further, I have also explored the occurrence of memory-like response i.e. immune priming in Drosophila melanogaster. I have specifically studied the trans-generational effects of parental immune priming in the F1 generation. I showed an individual role of mother and father in transferring memory-like response to their offspring.