Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.
Laboratório de Produtos Naturais e Espectrometria de Massas (LaPNEM), Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2018 Nov 8;13(11):e0207051. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207051. eCollection 2018.
The galling habit represents a complex type of interaction between insects and plants, ranging from antagonism to mutualism. The obligate pollination mutualism between Ficus and fig wasps relies strongly on the induction of galls in Ficus flowers, where wasps' offspring develop. Even though gall induction plays an important role in many insect-plant interactions, the mechanisms that trigger gall formation are still not completely known. Using a fingerprinting approach, we show here that venom protein profiles from galling fig wasps differ from the venom profiles of non-galling species, suggesting the secretion plays different roles according to the type of interaction it is involved in. Each studied cleptoparasitic species had a distinct venom profile, suggesting that cleptoparasitism in fig wasps covers a vast diversity of molecular interactions. Fig wasp venoms are mainly composed of peptides. No low molecular weight compounds were detected by UPLC-DAD-MS, suggesting that such compounds (e.g., IAA and cytokinines) are not involved in gall induction. The differences in venom composition observed between galling and non-galling fig wasp species bring new perspectives to the study of gall induction processes and the role of insect secretions.
化叶行为代表了昆虫和植物之间一种复杂的相互作用类型，从敌对关系到互利共生关系都有。榕小蜂和榕属植物之间的专性传粉互惠关系强烈依赖于榕属植物花中的虫瘿诱导，榕小蜂的后代在那里发育。尽管虫瘿诱导在许多昆虫与植物的相互作用中起着重要作用，但触发虫瘿形成的机制仍不完全清楚。在这里，我们使用指纹图谱方法表明，瘿蜂的毒液蛋白图谱与非瘿蜂物种的毒液图谱不同，这表明这种分泌根据其参与的相互作用类型发挥不同的作用。每个研究的拟寄生物种都有独特的毒液图谱，这表明榕小蜂中的拟寄生现象涵盖了广泛的分子相互作用多样性。榕小蜂毒液主要由肽组成。通过 UPLC-DAD-MS 未检测到低分子量化合物，这表明这些化合物（例如 IAA 和细胞分裂素）不参与虫瘿诱导。在瘿蜂和非瘿蜂物种之间观察到的毒液组成差异为虫瘿诱导过程和昆虫分泌物的作用研究带来了新的视角。
