Most of the progress in dissecting the Drosophila antimicrobial response over the past decade has centered around intracellular signaling pathways in immune response tissues and expression of genes encoding antimicrobial peptide genes. The past few years, however, have witnessed significant advances in our understanding of the recognition of microbial invaders and subsequent activation of signaling cascades. In particular, the roles of peptidoglycan recognition proteins, which have known homologues in mammals, have been recognized and examined at the structural and functional levels.