#Ento23
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hansonmark.bsky.social
Thanks to @cedricaumont.bsky.social and Dino McMahon for putting up with me for >2 years as we sorted this all out. also thanks to @blongdon.bsky.social and the @royentsoc.bsky.social #Ento23 organisers for hosting the meeting that kicked of this collaboration! Also to PhyloPic for the silhouettes ❤️
March 6, 2026 at 8:23 AM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23

@cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun).

Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects
bit.ly/DrsHGT

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A phylogenetic tree of insects is shown annotating the presence or absence of a an antimicrobial peptide gene across winged insects Various phylogenetic secondary loss events are mapped to a tree of insects to explain the parsimony calculations necessary to explain the diversity of insect Drosomycin antimicrobial peptide genes Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are key defence molecules of the innate immune system of plants and animals. Understanding the evolutionary origins of AMPs can help to explain how immune systems acquire novelty and vary in their defensive capabilities. However, AMPs evolve rapidly, and so the origins of similar AMPs across organisms is often unclear. Furthermore, false negatives due to low search sensitivity are common and can hinder confident annotations about true absences. Due to these difficulties, understanding whether similar AMP genes found in diverse organisms represent ancestral molecules or evolutionary novelties has been challenging. In this report, we present evidence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of the antifungal peptide gene Drosomycin across insects. We show that in Diptera, the presence of Drosomycin is restricted to the Melanogaster group and additionally the distant relative Drosophila busckii. We go on to recover Drosomycin genes in cockroaches (Blattodea), mantises (Mantodea), one katydid (Orthoptera), various beetles (Coleoptera), and a recently acquired pseudogenized Drosomycin locus in Liposcelis booklice (Psocodea), but no other insects. Explaining this diversity through shared ancestry requires at least 50 independent loss events, or just seven HGT events. Previous studies have suggested that similar AMPs found across divergent species reflect conservation from a common ancestor, or due to their small size, that they arose via convergent evolution resulting from pathogen-imposed selection. Our findings suggest horizontal gene transfer can be responsible for the presence of some AMP genes found scattered across the tree of life. By presenting a mechanism through which immune systems can acquire novelty, our study also suggests a possible explanation for certain lineage-specific competencies for defence against infectious disease. While loss of AMP genes is common in certain lineages, here we suggest gain of AMPs can occur just as suddenly.
March 6, 2026 at 8:23 AM
royentsoc.bsky.social
If you purchased a ticket when registering for #Ento25, join us at Double Tree by Hilton to continue networking over dinner - Your dinner ticket can be found in your name badge.

🎟️ There may still be spare tickets left - Speak to a member of staff at the RES stand for info 🪲
Photo of some of the delegates at the Ento23 Conference Dinner - A warmly lit banquet hall with guests seated at round tables enjoying a social gathering under string lights.
September 10, 2025 at 1:05 PM
thonoir.bsky.social
Really happy and proud that a BSc student who worked with me in this last academic year is presenting their work on invasive ants at #Ento23.
July 24, 2023 at 9:09 PM