Interaction of with Dif/Dorsal Facilitates Antimicrobial Peptide Transcriptions and Enhances Toll Immune Responses.

The Toll signaling pathway mainly responds to Gram-positive (G) bacteria or fungal infection, which is highly conserved with mammalian TLR signaling pathway. Although many positive and negative regulators involved in the immune response of the Toll pathway have been identified in , the roles of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in Toll immune responses are poorly understood to date. In this study, our results demonstrate that is mainly expressed in the nucleus and upregulated after infection. Especially, not only modulates differential expressions of multiple antimicrobial peptide genes but also affects the survival rate during response to G bacterial infection based on the transiently overexpressing and the knockdown assays in vivo. Mechanically, interacts with the NF-κB transcription factors Dorsal-related immunity factor/Dorsal to promote the transcriptions of antimicrobial peptides and , thus enhancing Toll immune responses. Taken together, this study identifies as a positive regulator of innate immune response to G bacterial infection to facilitate Toll signaling via interacting with Dorsal-related immunity factor/Dorsal. It would be helpful to reveal the roles of lncRNAs in Toll immune response in and provide insights into animal innate immunity.