Basement Membrane and Cell Integrity of Self-Tissues in Maintaining Drosophila Immunological Tolerance

The mechanism underlying immune system recognition of different types of pathogens has been extensively studied over the past few decades; however,the mechanism by which healthy self-tissue evades an attack by its own immune system is less well-understood. here,we established an autoimmune model of melanotic mass formation in drosophila by genetically disrupting the basement membrane. we found that the basement membrane endows otherwise susceptible target tissues with self-tolerance that prevents autoimmunity,and further demonstrated that laminin is a key component for both structural maintenance and the self-tolerance checkpoint function of the basement membrane. moreover,we found that cell integrity,as determined by cell-cell interaction and apicobasal polarity,functions as a second discrete checkpoint. target tissues became vulnerable to blood cell encapsulation and subsequent melanization only after loss of both the basement membrane and cell integrity. © 2014 kim,choe.