Virulence factors and strategies of Leptopilina spp.: selective responses in Drosophila hosts.

To ensure survival, parasitic wasps of Drosophila have evolved strategies to optimize host development to their advantage. They also produce virulence factors that allow them to overcome or evade host defense. Wasp infection provokes cellular and humoral defense reactions, resulting in alteration in gene expression of the host. The activation of these reactions is controlled by conserved mechanisms shared by other invertebrate and vertebrate animals. Application of genomics and bioinformatics approaches is beginning to reveal comparative host gene expression changes after infection by different parasitic wasps. We analyze this comparison in the context of host physiology and immune cells, as well as the biology of the venom factors that wasps introduce into their hosts during oviposition. We compare virulence strategies of Leptopilina boulardi and L. heterotoma, in relation to genome-wide changes in gene expression in the fly hosts after infection. This analysis highlights fundamental differences in the changes that the host undergoes in its immune and general physiology in response to the two parasitic wasps. Such a comparative approach has the potential of revealing mechanisms governing the evolution of pathogenicity and how it impacts host range.