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dc.contributor.authorSieksmeyer, Thorben
dc.contributor.authorHe, Shulin
dc.contributor.authorEsparza-Mora, M Alejandra
dc.contributor.authorJiang, Shixiong
dc.contributor.authorPetrašiūnaitė, Vesta
dc.contributor.authorKuropka, Benno
dc.contributor.authorBanasiak, Ronald
dc.contributor.authorJulseth, Mara Jean
dc.contributor.authorWeise, Christoph
dc.contributor.authorJohnston, Paul R
dc.contributor.authorRodríguez-Rojas, Alexandro
dc.contributor.authorMcMahon, Dino P
dc.date.accessioned2024-03-27T11:30:10Z
dc.date.available2024-03-27T11:30:10Z
dc.date.issued2022-05-18
dc.identifier300474257
dc.identifierc82b044f-255e-47bd-9066-015dcdf9966b
dc.identifier35585501
dc.identifier85130296455
dc.identifier.citationSieksmeyer , T , He , S , Esparza-Mora , M A , Jiang , S , Petrašiūnaitė , V , Kuropka , B , Banasiak , R , Julseth , M J , Weise , C , Johnston , P R , Rodríguez-Rojas , A & McMahon , D P 2022 , ' Eating in a losing cause : limited benefit of modified macronutrient consumption following infection in the oriental cockroach Blatta orientalis ' , BMC Ecology and Evolution , vol. 22 , 67 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02007-8en
dc.identifier.issn2730-7182
dc.identifier.otherPubMedCentral: PMC9118584
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-8651-4488/work/157579128
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/29561
dc.descriptionOpen Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. S.H. was supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council and D.P.M. was supported by a seed-funding Grant provided by the Freie Universität Berlin and grant MC 436/6-1 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).en
dc.description.abstractBackground Host–pathogen interactions can lead to dramatic changes in host feeding behaviour. One aspect of this includes self-medication, where infected individuals consume substances such as toxins or alter their macronutrient consumption to enhance immune competence. Another widely adopted animal response to infection is illness-induced anorexia, which is thought to assist host immunity directly or by limiting the nutritional resources available to pathogens. Here, we recorded macronutrient preferences of the global pest cockroach, Blatta orientalis to investigate how shifts in host macronutrient dietary preference and quantity of carbohydrate (C) and protein (P) interact with immunity following bacterial infection. Results We find that B. orientalis avoids diets enriched for P under normal conditions, and that high P diets reduce cockroach survival in the long term. However, following bacterial challenge, cockroaches significantly reduced their overall nutrient intake, particularly of carbohydrates, and increased the relative ratio of protein (P:C) consumed. Surprisingly, these behavioural shifts had a limited effect on cockroach immunity and survival, with minor changes to immune protein abundance and antimicrobial activity between individuals placed on different diets, regardless of infection status. Conclusions We show that cockroach feeding behaviour can be modulated by a pathogen, resulting in an illness-induced anorexia-like feeding response and a shift from a C-enriched to a more P:C equal diet. However, our results also indicate that such responses do not provide significant immune protection in B. orientalis, suggesting that the host’s dietary shift might also result from random rather than directed behaviour. The lack of an apparent benefit of the shift in feeding behaviour highlights a possible reduced importance of diet in immune regulation in these invasive animals, although further investigations employing pathogens with alternative infection strategies are warranted.
dc.format.extent14
dc.format.extent1268554
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofBMC Ecology and Evolutionen
dc.subjectAllergensen
dc.subjectAnimalsen
dc.subjectAnorexiaen
dc.subjectCockroachesen
dc.subjectDieten
dc.subjectFeeding Behavior/physiologyen
dc.subjectNutrientsen
dc.subjectDASen
dc.titleEating in a losing cause : limited benefit of modified macronutrient consumption following infection in the oriental cockroach Blatta orientalisen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Medicineen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02007-8
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden


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