@article {122, title = {Activation of Drosophila Toll during fungal infection by a blood serine protease.}, journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)}, volume = {297}, year = {2002}, month = {2002 Jul 5}, pages = {114-6}, abstract = {Drosophila host defense to fungal and Gram-positive bacterial infection is mediated by the Spaetzle/Toll/cactus gene cassette. It has been proposed that Toll does not function as a pattern recognition receptor per se but is activated through a cleaved form of the cytokine Spaetzle. The upstream events linking infection to the cleavage of Spaetzle have long remained elusive. Here we report the identification of a central component of the fungal activation of Toll. We show that ethylmethane sulfonate-induced mutations in the persephone gene, which encodes a previously unknown serine protease, block induction of the Toll pathway by fungi and resistance to this type of infection.}, keywords = {Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Chromosome Mapping, Drosophila, Drosophila Proteins, Escherichia coli, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Genes, Insect, Gram-Positive Cocci, Hemolymph, Hypocreales, Insect Proteins, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Protein Sorting Signals, Protein Structure, Tertiary, Receptors, Cell Surface, Serine Endopeptidases, Toll-Like Receptors}, issn = {1095-9203}, doi = {10.1126/science.1072391}, author = {Ligoxygakis, Petros and Pelte, Nad{\`e}ge and Hoffmann, Jules A and Reichhart, Jean-Marc} }