Specific immune response of beetles adapts to bacteria

The immune system fends off pathogens in a wide variety of ways. For example, the immune system's memory is able to distinguish a foreign protein it has encountered before and to react with a corresponding antibody. Researchers have now investigated experimentally whether this ability of the immune system to specifically fend off pathogens can adapt in the course of evolution. To this end, they studied many successive generations of flour beetles—because insects can also specifically repel pathogens to a certain degree.

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