A. B. Leitao

This study shows that Drosophila populations under high parasite pressure evolved constitutive humoral immunity and enhanced induced immune responses, with Upd3 and JAK/STAT signaling playing key roles.

The paper shows that Drosophila's immune response to parasitoid wasps requires both danger signals from wounding and a PAMP from the wasp to trigger melanization and Tep1 expression.

The paper identifies recurrent loss-of-function mutations in the Drosophila immunity gene Lectin-24A, showing natural selection favors these mutations in some populations due to a pleiotropic cost of expression.