Access

News and Views

Nature Immunology 9, 1327–1328 (1 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/ni1208-1327

RIG-I-like antiviral protein in flies

Osamu Takeuchi & Shizuo Akira

The immune system senses invasion by viruses and mounts antiviral responses for eliminating the infection using pattern-recognition receptors that discriminate self and viral components. In contrast to mammals, in which the type I interferon system is essential for antiviral immunity, insects such as Drosophila melanogaster do not encode a counterpart to type I interferon in their genome.