Recent advances in vertebrate and invertebrate transgenerational immunity in the light of ecology and evolution

Abstract

Parental experience with parasites and pathogens can lead to increased offspring resistance to infection, through a process known as transgenerational immune priming (TGIP). Broadly defined, TGIP occurs across a wide range of taxa, and can be viewed as a type of phenotypic plasticity, with hosts responding to the pressures of relevant local infection risk by altering their offspring's immune defenses. There are ever increasing examples of both invertebrate and vertebrate TGIP, which go beyond classical examples of maternal antibody transfer. Here we critically summarize the current evidence for TGIP in both invertebrates and vertebrates. Mechanisms underlying TGIP remain elusive in many systems, but while it is unlikely that they are conserved across the range of organisms with TGIP, recent insight into epigenetic modulation may challenge this view. We place TGIP into a framework of evolutionary ecology, discussing costs and relevant environmental variation. We highlight how the ecology of species or populations should affect if, where, when, and how TGIP is realized. We propose that the field can progress by incorporating evolutionary ecology focused designs to the study of the so far well chronicled, but mostly descriptive TGIP, and how rapidly developing -omic methods can be employed to further understand TGIP across taxa.

The honeybee (Apis mellifera) developmental state shapes the genetic composition of the deformed wing virus-A quasispecies during serial transmission

“…Alternatively, the clustering may reflect systematic variation in the molecular condition of the pupae used for experimentation. These were also harvested serially and could have been conditioned by their immediate environment, such as nutrition 65,66 or the presence of other bee viruses 47,67,68 , which can affect susceptibility to DWV infection 64,66 , its pathology 47 , tolerance of its effects 65 or interfere with DWV replication 26,67 or transmission 68 . These alternatives will be investigated further in future experiments and more detailed analyses of the samples.…”

Transgenerational developmental effects of immune priming in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum

“…T. castaneum is one of the rare species for which not only maternal but also paternal TGIP has been 358 observed (Roth et al 2010;Roth et al 2018). It is therefore important to further study this 359 phenomenon.…”

Effects of Maternal Stress on Measures of Anxiety and Fearfulness in Different Strains of Laying Hens

“…Cottrell and Seckl (15) proposed two major hypotheses to explain the association between maternal stress and postnatal effects on offspring: fetal malnutrition and overexposure to glucocorticoid hormones. More recently, studies in avian species have shown that maternal stress can also be linked to the increase in other biological components in the egg, such as androgens (16), thyroid hormones (17), antioxidants (18), and immunoglobulins (19). Nevertheless, although glucocorticoid hormones are not a synonym for "stress" (20), corticosterone remains as one of the most analyzed mediators of maternal stress in the literature due to their pleiotropic role in regulating physiological responses to the environment and in the development and maturation of vital organs [reviewed in (6,16,21)].…”