Biology Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2013
Journal
Integr Comp Biol
Volume
53
Issue
4
First Page
545
Last Page
556
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/ict004
Abstract
Multiple stressors, both abiotic and biotic, often are experienced simultaneously by organisms in nature. Responses to these stressors may share signaling pathways ("cross-talk") or protective mechanisms ("cross-tolerance"). Temperate and polar insects that must survive the winter experience low temperatures accompanied by additional abiotic stressors, such as low availability of water. Cold and desiccation have many similar effects at a cellular level, and we present evidence that the cellular mechanisms that protect against cold stress also protect against desiccation, and that the responses to cold and dehydration likely evolved as cross-tolerance. By contrast, there are several lines of evidence suggesting that low temperature stress elicits an upregulation of immune responses in insects (and vice versa). Because there is little mechanistic overlap between cold stress and immune stress at the cellular level, we suggest that this is cross-talk. Both cross-talk and cross-tolerance may be adaptive and likely evolved in response to synchronous stressors; however, we suggest that cross-talk and cross-tolerance may lead to different responses to changes in the timing and severity of multiple stress interactions in a changing world. We present a framework describing the potentially different responses of cross-tolerance and cross-talk to a changing environment and describe the nature of these impacts using interaction of cold-desiccation and cold-immunity in overwintering insects as an example.
Notes
PMID: 23520401
DOI: 10.1093/icb/ict004
Needs to be accompanied by the following statement:
"This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Integrative and Comparative Biology following peer review. The version of record [Brent J. Sinclair, Laura V. Ferguson, Golnaz Salehipour-shirazi, Heath A. MacMillan; Cross-tolerance and Cross-talk in the Cold: Relating Low Temperatures to Desiccation and Immune Stress in Insects. Integr Comp Biol 2013; 53 (4): 545-556. doi: 10.1093/icb/ict004] is available online at: [https://academic.oup.com/icb/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/icb/ict004]