Mutant eaterunspecified flies exhibit increased susceptibility to P. aeruginosa infection compared to wild-type flies.
Mutant eaterunspecified flies exposed to non-replicating P. aeruginosa flies survive longer than non-primed eaterunspecified flies. Five days after exposure, eaterunspecified flies exhibit the same susceptibility to infection as non-primed flies, while wild-type flies are still significantly protected by priming, indicating that immune priming may be dependent on phagocytosis.
Larval hemocytes prepared from flies lacking eater expression less effectively phagocytose the parental S. aureus strain, compared with hemocytes of wild type flies. As for wild type, phagocytosis of the mutant 'ItaS' S. aureus strain by eater-deficient hemocytes is decreased compared to phagocytosis of the parental strain.
