Tracheal terminal cells of Drosophila are immune privileged to maintain their Foxo-dependent structural plasticity
Judith Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder, Jiwon Shim, Judith M Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder · 2026
Read Tracheal terminal cells of Drosophila are immune privileged to maintain their Foxo-dependent structural plasticity by Judith Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder, Jiwon Shim, Judith M Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13275064.txt.
Description
Judith Bossen and colleagues report a 2026 journal article on why the gas-exchange cells of fruit fly airways skip the local immune response. In Drosophila, tracheal terminal cells deliver oxygen to tissues, like tiny lung units, and constantly remodel their branching with food and oxygen levels. Bacterial infection triggers a strong defense in the rest of the airway lining.
These terminal cells, the team found, simply lack the bacterial sensor PGRP-LC, so the defense pathway never fires inside them. Forcing the sensor on caused branching loss, damage, and cell death, which blocking downstream factors prevented. Both remodeling and immunity need the same switch, FoxO, so staying immune-privileged protects the cells' life-sustaining flexibility, an evolutionary trade-off.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Judith Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder, Jiwon Shim, Judith M Bossen, Larissa Fritz, Reshmi Raveendran, Leizhi Shi, Jingjing He, Thomas Roeder |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 82809 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |