LAUSR

Although adult Drosophila flies remain popular models for probing the genetic basis of biological processes, Drosophila larvae have not been as well utilized. To increase the utility of Drosophila larvae for modeling disease, a team led by Takayuki Kuraishi and Shoichiro Kurata at Tohoku University, Japan, describe a novel method for inducing infections in Drosophila larvae using a small tungsten needle, enabling them to study mechanisms of bacterial infiltration (Dis. Model Mech. 10, 271–281; 2017). Using various mutant lines of larvae the team shows that the Toll pathway is not required for clearance of Gram-positive bacteria, such as Staphylococcus saprophyticus, which is distinct from adult Drosophila flies, which have been shown to rely on the Toll pathway for successful removal of bacteria. Their results not only demonstrate interesting differences in innate immune system function between adult and larvae fruit flies, but provide proof that their novel method for manipulating larval flies could be general useful for modeling disease mechanisms.