Fig. 3

Inflammatory genes expression in Drosophila melanogaster after septic injury with Staphylococcus aureus. We determined inflammatory gene expression, pattern recognition receptors, antimicrobial peptides at 6, 18, 48, and 168 h (1 week) after needle pricking with qRT-PCR (*p < 0.05). a PGRP-SD and Toll were upregulated as early as 6 h after infection. By 18 h, PGRP-SD and Toll expression in infected without treatment flies were significantly elevated compared to infected with antibiotics flies. Toll remained elevated 48 h after infection with treatment; however, there was no difference between infected with antibiotics and sham; 1 week after infection expression of Toll was downregulated. b Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) were upregulated by 6 h in a similar way between infected without treatment vs. infected with antibiotics groups. By 18 h, the infected without treatment flies had significantly elevation of drosomycin, metchnikowin, defensin, JNK, and cecropin A. Drosomycin and metchnikowin remained significantly elevated in the survivors 48 h and 7 days after surviving sepsis. c Expression of Drs-GFP construct was detected at baseline and significantly increased as early as 18 h following infection using Western immunoblot. While its expression came back to baseline in sham flies by 48 h, the infected with antibiotics group had sustained elevation of Drs-GFP expression by 72 h