Oral immune priming with Bacillus thuringiensis induces a shift in the gene expression of Tribolium castaneum larvae

Greenwood JM, Milutinović B, Peuß R, Behrens S, Esser D, Rosenstiel P, Schulenburg H, Kurtz J

Abstract

The phenomenon of immune priming, i.e. enhanced protection following a secondary exposure to a pathogen, has now been demonstrated in a wide range of invertebrate species. Despite accumulating phenotypic evidence, knowledge of its mechanistic underpinnings is currently very limited. Here we used the system of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum and the insect pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to further our molecular understanding of the oral immune priming phenomenon. We addressed how ingestion of bacterial cues (derived from spore supernatants) of an orally pathogenic and non-pathogenic Bt strain affects gene expression upon later challenge exposure, using a whole-transcriptome sequencing approach.