Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA.
Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA.
Insect Biochem Mol Biol. 2018 Dec;103:53-69. doi: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2018.10.006. Epub 2018 Oct 24.
Serine proteases (SPs) and serine protease homologs (SPHs) play essential roles in insect physiological processes including digestion, defense and development. Studies of insect genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes have generated a vast amount of information on these proteins, dwarfing the biological data acquired from a few model species. The large number and high diversity of homologous sequences makes it a challenge to use the limited functional information for making predictions across a broad taxonomic group of insects. In this work, we have extensively updated the framework of knowledge on the SP-related proteins in Drosophila melanogaster by identifying 52 new SPs/SPHs, classifying the 257 proteins into four groups (CLIP, gut, single- and multi-domain SPs/SPHs), and detecting inherent connections among phylogenetic relationships, genomic locations and expression profiles for 99 of the genes. Information on the existence of specific proteins in eggs, larvae, pupae and adults is presented to facilitate future research. More importantly, we have developed an approach to reveal close homologous or orthologous relationships among SPs/SPHs from D. melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae, Apis mellifera, Manduca sexta, and Tribolium castaneum thus inspiring functional studies in these and other holometabolous insects. This approach is useful for tackling similar problems on large and diverse protein families in other groups of organisms.
丝氨酸蛋白酶（SPs）和丝氨酸蛋白酶同源物（SPHs）在昆虫生理过程中发挥着重要作用，包括消化、防御和发育。对昆虫基因组、转录组和蛋白质组的研究产生了大量关于这些蛋白质的信息，这些信息远远超过了从少数模式物种获得的生物学数据。大量的同源序列和高度的多样性使得利用有限的功能信息来对广泛的昆虫分类群进行预测成为一项挑战。在这项工作中，我们通过鉴定 52 个新的 SPs/SPHs，将 257 个蛋白质分为 4 组（CLIP、肠道、单域和多域 SPs/SPHs），并检测了 99 个基因的系统发育关系、基因组位置和表达谱之间的内在联系，从而广泛更新了果蝇中与 SP 相关的蛋白质的知识框架。提供了关于特定蛋白质在卵、幼虫、蛹和成虫中存在的信息，以方便未来的研究。更重要的是，我们开发了一种方法来揭示果蝇、冈比亚按蚊、蜜蜂、烟草天蛾和谷斑皮蠹中 SPs/SPHs 之间的密切同源或直系同源关系，从而为这些和其他完全变态昆虫的功能研究提供了启示。该方法对于解决其他生物群体中大型和多样化蛋白质家族的类似问题非常有用。
