Figure 5. Females that fail to produce eggs do not demonstrate decreased immune defense after mating.

Eggless females are tudor¹ bw sp/CS (generated by tudor¹ bw sp/tudor¹ bw sp females x CS males) and have no germline. Egg producing females are tudor¹ bw sp/CS (generated by tudor¹ bw sp/CyO females x CS males) and have wild type egg production. All females were infected with P. rettgeri 2–3 hours after mated females completed copulation. (A) Egg producing females demonstrated a significant effect of mating on bacterial load (p = 0.0003), while eggless females did not (p = 0.7792). We assayed bacterial load in females 24 hours after infection. Sample sizes: n_{virgin, egg producing} = 15, n_{mated, egg producing} = 16, n_{virgin, eggless} = 14, n_{mated, eggless} = 15. Each data point consists of three pooled females and samples were collected over two replicate experiments, and flies given a sterile wound always yielded zero colonies (data not shown). (B) Egg producing mated females demonstrated significantly lower survival after infection compared to egg producing virgin females (p = 0.0022, Bonferroni corrected cutoff=0.025). Survival of eggless mated females was not significantly different from that of eggless virgin females (p = 0.7718). Sample sizes: n_{virgin, egg producing} = 96, n_{mated, egg producing} = 92, n_{virgin, eggless} = 94, n_{mated, eggless} = 106. Each data point represents a single fly and samples were collected over two replicate experiments. Females given a sterile wound had < 5% mortality regardless of treatment. ** p < 0.01.