Journal
JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 32, Issue 10, Pages 1082-1092Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13509
Keywords
gene expression; infection; phagocytosis; senescence; sex differences; stress
Categories
Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [AR 872/4-1]
- Leverhulme Trust [RPG-2013-421]
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Social environments have been shown to have multiple effects on individual immune responses. For example, increased social contact might signal greater infection risk and prompt a prophylactic upregulation of immunity. This differential investment of resources may in part explain why social environments affect ageing and lifespan. Our previous work using Drosophila melanogaster showed that single-sex social contact reduced lifespan for both sexes. Here, we assess how social interactions (isolation or contact) affect susceptibility to infection, phagocytotic activity and expression of a subset of immune- and stress-related genes in young and old flies of both sexes. Social contact had a neutral, or even improved, effect on post-infection lifespan in older flies and reduced the expression of stress response genes in females; however, it reduced phagocytotic activity. Overall, the effects of social environment were complex and largely subtle and do not indicate a consistent effect. Together, these findings indicate that social contact in D. melanogaster does not have a predictable impact on immune responses and does not simply trade-off immune investment with lifespan.
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