This review summarizes the research progress made over the past decade in the field of
gastropod immunity resulting from investigations of the interaction between the snail …

Biomphalaria snails are instrumental in transmission of the human blood fluke Schistosoma
mansoni. With the World Health Organization's goal to eliminate schistosomiasis as a global …

Comparative immunology, studying both vertebrates and invertebrates, provided the earliest
descriptions of phagocytosis as a general immune mechanism. However, the large scale of …

The molecules that mediate innate immunity are encoded by relatively few genes and
exhibit broad specificity. Detailed annotation of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) …

Aerolysins are virulence factors belonging to the β pore-forming toxin (β-PFT) superfamily
that are abundantly distributed in bacteria. More rarely, β-PFTs have been described in …

Immunologists, perhaps understandably, most often concentrate on the human immune
system, an anthropocentric focus that has resulted in a dearth of information about the …

Technical limitations have hindered comprehensive studies of highly variable immune
response molecules that are thought to have evolved due to pathogen-mediated selection …

Background Host immune function can contribute to numerous ecological/evolutionary
processes. Ecoimmunological studies, however, typically use one/few phenotypic immune …

The freshwater snail, Biomphalaria glabrata, is an important intermediate host in the life
cycle for the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni, the causative agent of schistosomiasis …

Detection of pathogens by all living organisms is the primary step needed to implement a
coherent and efficient immune response. This implies a mediation by different soluble and/or …