Gallon Marília Elias, Gobbo-Neto Leonardo
Núcleo de Pesquisa em Produtos Naturais e Sintéticos, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (USP), Av. do Café s/n°, Ribeirão Preto, SP 14040-903, Brazil.
Metabolites. 2021 Feb 25;11(3):134. doi: 10.3390/metabo11030134.
Balanced nutritional intake is essential to ensure that insects undergo adequate larval development and metamorphosis. Integrative multidisciplinary approaches have contributed valuable insights regarding the ecological and evolutionary outcomes of plant-insect interactions. To address the plant metabolites involved in the larval development of a specialist insect, we investigated the development of caterpillars fed on Heliantheae species (, and ) leaves and determined the chemical profile of plants and insects using a metabolomic approach. By means of LC-MS and GC-MS combined analyses, 51 metabolites were putatively identified in Heliantheae species and caterpillars and frass; these metabolites included flavonoids, sesquiterpene lactones, monoterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, diterpenes, triterpenes, oxygenated terpene derivatives, steroids and lipid derivatives. The leading discriminant metabolites were diterpenes, which were detected only in leaves and insects that were fed on this plant-based diet. Additionally, caterpillars fed on leaves took longer to complete their development to the adult phase and exhibited a greater diapause rate. Hence, we hypothesized that diterpenes may be involved in the differential larval development. Our findings shed light on the plant metabolites that play roles in insect development and metabolism, opening new research avenues for integrative studies of insect nutritional ecology.
均衡的营养摄入对于确保昆虫经历充分的幼虫发育和变态至关重要。综合多学科方法为植物 - 昆虫相互作用的生态和进化结果提供了有价值的见解。为了研究参与一种专食性昆虫幼虫发育的植物代谢物，我们调查了以菊科植物（向日葵属、菊芋属和牛膝菊属）叶片为食的毛虫的发育情况，并使用代谢组学方法确定了植物和昆虫的化学特征。通过液相色谱 - 质谱联用（LC - MS）和气相色谱 - 质谱联用（GC - MS）分析，在菊科植物、毛虫及其粪便中推定鉴定出51种代谢物；这些代谢物包括黄酮类化合物、倍半萜内酯、单萜类化合物、倍半萜类化合物、二萜类化合物、三萜类化合物、氧化萜烯衍生物、类固醇和脂质衍生物。主要的判别代谢物是二萜类化合物，仅在向日葵叶片以及以这种植物为食的昆虫中检测到。此外，以菊芋叶片为食的毛虫完成发育至成虫阶段所需时间更长，且滞育率更高。因此，我们推测二萜类化合物可能参与了幼虫发育的差异。我们的研究结果揭示了在昆虫发育和代谢中起作用的植物代谢物，为昆虫营养生态学的综合研究开辟了新的研究途径。
