Antiviral Defense in Invertebrates

Abstract

Invertebrate organisms include vectors of human viruses (mosquitoes, sand flies), model organisms (fruit fly), insect pollinators (honey bees and bumble bees), plant virus vectors (aphids), and commercially valuable aquatic species (oysters and shrimp) that play important roles in shaping ecosystems throughout the world. Like all organisms, invertebrates are infected by viruses and have, in turn, evolved strategies to limit virus infection. There are some fundamental similarities in host defense mechanisms, including the host recognition of non-self, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (e.g., viral dsRNA) that in turn stimulate the activation of host proteins, and expression of genes required to restrict virus replication, as well as unique aspects of specific host–virus interactions that are a result of co-evolution. Invertebrate antiviral defense mechanisms include canonical immune signaling cascades (e.g., Jak/STAT, Toll, Imd), heat shock responses, apoptosis, and dsRNA-triggered responses including the sequence-specific RNA interference mechanism and a less well characterized, non-sequence-specific dsRNA mediated response.