|Citation||Galac, M.R., Lazzaro, B.P. (2011). Comparative
pathology of bacteria in the genus Providencia to a natural
host, Drosophila melanogaster. Microbes Infect. 13(7): 673--683.
(Export to RIS)| |Publication Type||Research paper| |PubMed
Abstract||Bacteria in the genus Providencia are pathogens of
many organisms, including humans and insects. We and colleagues
have isolated five different strains belonging to four distinct
Providencia species as natural infections of Drosophila
melanogaster captured in the wild. We found that these isolates
vary considerably in pathology to infected D. melanogaster,
differing in the level of mortality they cause, their ability to
replicate within the host and the level that the fly's immune
response is elicited. One interesting bacterium was Providencia
sneebia, which causes nearly complete mortality and reaches
large numbers in the fly but does not elicit a comparably strong
immune response. Through coinfection experiments, we determined
that P. sneebia avoids recogniti