Moreover, taking into consideration that most of the infected insects will not develop a systemic infection, the fact that gut only-infected bugs maintain two immune activation pathways reduced (Toll and IMD, as suggested by our results) in a long-term infection may be important for the maintenance of stable populations with a high number of parasites in the intestinal tract, which could increase the chances of hemolymph invasion (Hecker et al., 1990; de Oliveira and de Souza, 2001; Ferreira et al., 2010; Ferreira et al., 2015; Ferreira et al., 2018). Here, TLR4 is linked to infection.