State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
College of Biotechnology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
Transgenic Res. 2017 Dec;26(6):807-815. doi: 10.1007/s11248-017-0045-y. Epub 2017 Sep 26.
Diapause is a state of developmental arrest that is most often observed in arthropods, especially insects. The domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, is a typical insect that enters diapause at an early embryonic stage. Previous studies have revealed that the diapause hormone (DH) signaling molecules, especially the core members DH and DH receptor 1 (DHR1), are crucial for the determination of embryonic diapause in diapause silkworm strains. However, whether they function in non-diapause silkworm strains remains largely unknown. Here, we generated two transgenic lines overexpressing DH or DHR1 genes in a non-diapause silkworm strain, Nistari. Our results showed that developmental expression patterns of DH and DHR1 are quite similar in transgenic silkworms: both genes are highly expressed in the mid to late stages of pupae and are most highly expressed in day-6 pupae but are expressed at very low levels in other developmental stages. Moreover, the overexpression of DH or DHR1 can affect the expression of diapause-related genes but is not sufficient to induce embryonic diapause in their offspring. This study provides new insights into the function of DH and DHR1 in a non-diapause silkworm strain.
滞育是一种发育停滞的状态，最常观察到在节肢动物，特别是昆虫中。家蚕，Bombyx mori，是一种典型的昆虫，在早期胚胎阶段进入滞育。先前的研究表明，滞育激素（DH）信号分子，特别是核心成员 DH 和 DH 受体 1（DHR1），对于滞育蚕品种的胚胎滞育的决定至关重要。然而，它们是否在非滞育蚕品种中发挥作用仍然知之甚少。在这里，我们在一个非滞育蚕品种 Nistari 中生成了两个过表达 DH 或 DHR1 基因的转基因系。我们的结果表明，DH 和 DHR1 的发育表达模式在转基因蚕中非常相似：这两个基因在蛹的中后期高度表达，在第 6 天的蛹中表达最高，但在其他发育阶段表达水平非常低。此外，DH 或 DHR1 的过表达可以影响滞育相关基因的表达，但不足以诱导其后代的胚胎滞育。本研究为 DH 和 DHR1 在非滞育蚕品种中的功能提供了新的见解。
