Frontiers of research on the innate immune response in insects
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Key Words:insect, innate immunity, melanization, antimicrobial peptide
Abstract: Innate immunity in insects is divided into humoral immunity and cellular immunity, which function together to defend against infection by various pathogens including bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc. Humoral immunity mainly includes melanin synthesis and antimicrobial peptide production. Cellular immunity relies on phagocytosis, nodulation, and encapsulation. In the insect innate immune response, pattern recognition proteins are responsible for the recognition of specific pathogenassociated molecular patterns in invading pathogens. Serine proteases, serine protease inhibitors, a variety of ligands and receptors are involved in the activation and regulation of signaling pathways. Effectors such as antimicrobial peptides and melanin kill and eliminate the pathogens. This paper describes recent progress in research on the insect innate immune response, and looks at the frontiers of research in this field, including gut immunology, immune priming, and hemimetabolous immunology.