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Immune defence in bumble-bee offspring.
Journal article

Immune defence in bumble-bee offspring.

  • Moret Y Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Ecology and Evolution, ETH-Zentrum NW, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland. moret@eco.umnw.ethz.ch
  • Schmid-Hempel P
  • 2001-12-06
Published in:
  • Nature. - 2001
Animals
Bees
Female
Hemolymph
Lipopolysaccharides
Male
Monophenol Monooxygenase
English Immune-challenged vertebrate females transfer specific antibodies to their offspring, but this gratuitous immunity cannot operate in invertebrates. Here we show that constitutive immune defence is enhanced in sexual offspring of the bumble-bee Bombus terrestris L. when the parental colony is immune-challenged. Our findings indicate that invertebrates may use a different component of the immune system to generate a facultative trans-generational increase in the immune response.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/284585
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