Growing bacteria shed elicitors of Drosophila humoral immunity.

It has been much debated how the Drosophila immune system can recognize bacterial peptidoglycan that is often hidden. We show that bacteria separated from Drosophila S2 cells by a semipermeable membrane can upregulate the Imd pathway. Supernatants from exponentially growing but not from stationary-phase bacterial cultures induce antimicrobial peptides. It is also made likely that the shed elicitors are of peptidoglycan nature.