The assays presented here will be useful for rapid and inexpensive testing of other potential HD drugs and elucidating pathways of drug action.
Identification of the mutations in the assays presented here is more straight forward than with sequencing and the results were completely reproducible.
In summary, the assays presented here are valuable tools for exploring the ecological immunology of Darwin's finches, and in helping to determine the epidemiology of two critically important diseases threatening avifauna in the Galápagos archipelago.
The assays presented here took into account the effect of previous encounters with hosts and host-associated odours, which can strongly affect the responses of parasitoids, including C. marginiventris [ 16, 17], through associative learning [ 28].
This could be tested e.g. by repeating the assays presented in Figure 1A and B using beads coated with a more plasma membrane-like lipid composition (e.g. by including 20-40% PE, 10-20% PS and 1-5% PI 4,5 P2).
Because the assays presented in Fig. 4A,B could not discern whether the increased sensitivity to galactose is due to an increased cytostatic or cytotoxic effect, we tested the effect of galactose on the UPR-positive and UPR-negative gal7Δ strains using a cell viability assay.
