Absence of juvenile hormone signalling regulates the dynamic expression profiles of nutritional metabolism genes during diapause preparation in the cabbage beetle Colaphellus bowringi.

Temperate insects have evolved diapause, a period of programmed developmental arrest during specific life stages, to survive unfavourable conditions. During the diapause preparation phase (DPP), diapause-destined individuals generally store large amounts of fat by regulating nutrition distribution for the energy requirement during diapause maintenance and postdiapause development. Although nutritional patterns during the DPP have been investigated at physiological and biochemical levels in many insects, it remains largely unknown how nutritional metabolism is regulated during the DPP at molecular levels. We used RNA sequencing to compare gene expression profiles of adult female cabbage beetles Colaphellus bowringi during the preoviposition phase (POP) and the DPP. Most differentially expressed genes were involved in specific metabolic pathways during the DPP. Genes related to lipid and carbohydrate metabolic pathways were clearly highly expressed during the DPP, whereas genes related to protein metabolic pathways were highly expressed during the POP. Hormone challenge and RNA interference experiments revealed that juvenile hormone via its nuclear receptor methoprene-tolerant mediated the expression of genes associated with nutritional metabolism during the DPP. This work not only sheds light on the mechanisms of diapause preparation, but also provides new insights into the molecular basis of environmental plasticity in insects.