IMMUNETREH | Trehalose as a source for privileged immunity in Drosophila

Summary
The immune response is an energy demanding process and immune cells must have a privileged access to energy/nutrients. While in mammalian system, this privileged access is achieved for example by insulin-independent glucose transporter, how is it achieved in insect is not known. The host laboratory has obtained preliminary results suggesting that the privileged access of fruit fly immune cells to nutrients might be achieved by using trehalose instead of glucose. It is known for a very long time that the primary sugar in insect is trehalose but it is a completely new idea that this carbohydrate could actually play an important role in the privileged access of immunity to resources, as in one of the most fundamental evolutionary trait. The goal of this project is therefore to test if activated Drosophila immune cells preferentially uptake trehalose and convert it to glucose intracellularly, being thus independent of the systemic carbohydrate regulation, and how important would it be for an efficient immune response. The project is based on a multidisciplinary approaches, when tissue-specific genetic tools will be used to manipulate metabolism in vivo in order to study immune response using techniques of molecular biology, developmental biology and immunology and state-of-the-art metabolic approaches. The goal for the researcher is to learn how to use Drosophila genetics and the infection models, well established in the host laboratory, and combine them with her expertise in insect physiology, cell culture and especially metabolomics.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/867430
Start date: 01-01-2020
End date: 12-02-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 156 980,64 Euro - 156 980,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The immune response is an energy demanding process and immune cells must have a privileged access to energy/nutrients. While in mammalian system, this privileged access is achieved for example by insulin-independent glucose transporter, how is it achieved in insect is not known. The host laboratory has obtained preliminary results suggesting that the privileged access of fruit fly immune cells to nutrients might be achieved by using trehalose instead of glucose. It is known for a very long time that the primary sugar in insect is trehalose but it is a completely new idea that this carbohydrate could actually play an important role in the privileged access of immunity to resources, as in one of the most fundamental evolutionary trait. The goal of this project is therefore to test if activated Drosophila immune cells preferentially uptake trehalose and convert it to glucose intracellularly, being thus independent of the systemic carbohydrate regulation, and how important would it be for an efficient immune response. The project is based on a multidisciplinary approaches, when tissue-specific genetic tools will be used to manipulate metabolism in vivo in order to study immune response using techniques of molecular biology, developmental biology and immunology and state-of-the-art metabolic approaches. The goal for the researcher is to learn how to use Drosophila genetics and the infection models, well established in the host laboratory, and combine them with her expertise in insect physiology, cell culture and especially metabolomics.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

WF-01-2018

Update Date

17-05-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.4. SPREADING EXCELLENCE AND WIDENING PARTICIPATION
H2020-EU.4.0. Cross-cutting call topics
H2020-WF-01-2018
WF-01-2018