Hangzhou Key Laboratory of Animal Adaptation and Evolution, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
Front Immunol. 2022 Jul 21;13:848267. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.848267. eCollection 2022.
is one of the most important agricultural pests in China. The locust has high fecundity and consumes large quantities of food, causing severe damage to diverse crops such as corn, sorghum, and rice. Immunity against pathogens and reproductive success are two important components of individual fitness, and many insects have a trade-off between reproduction and immunity when resources are limited, which may be an important target for pest control. In this study, adult females were treated with different concentrations (5 × 10 spores/mL or 2 × 10 spores/mL) of the entomopathogenic fungus . Effects of input to immunity on reproduction were studied by measuring feeding amount, enzyme activity, vitellogenin (Vg) and vitellogenin receptor (VgR) production, ovary development, and oviposition amount. When infected by , feeding rate and phenol oxidase and lysozyme activities increased, mRNA expression of and genes decreased, and yolk deposition was blocked. Weight of ovaries decreased, with significant decreases in egg, length and weight.Thus, locusts used nutritive input required for reproduction to resist invasion by microsporidia. This leads to a decrease in expression of and genes inhibited ovarian development, and greatly decreased total fecundity. at 2 × 10 spores/mL had a more obvious inhibitory effect on the ovarian development in migratory locusts. This study provides a detailed trade-off between reproduction and immune input of the female, which provides a reliable basis to find pest targets for biological control from those trade-off processes.
东亚飞蝗是中国最重要的农业害虫之一。它具有很高的繁殖力，大量消耗食物，对玉米、高粱和水稻等多种作物造成严重破坏。对病原体的免疫和生殖成功是个体适应性的两个重要组成部分，当资源有限时，许多昆虫在繁殖和免疫之间存在权衡，这可能是害虫防治的一个重要目标。在这项研究中，成年雌性蝗虫用不同浓度（5×10 孢子/mL 或 2×10 孢子/mL）的昆虫病原真菌 处理。通过测量取食量、酶活性、卵黄蛋白（Vg）和卵黄蛋白受体（VgR）的产生、卵巢发育和产卵量来研究输入到免疫中的效应。当被感染时，取食率和酚氧化酶和溶菌酶活性增加， 和 基因的 mRNA 表达减少，卵黄沉积被阻断。卵巢重量下降，卵、长度和重量显著减少。因此，蝗虫利用生殖所需的营养输入来抵抗微孢子虫的入侵。这导致 和 基因的表达受到抑制，卵巢发育受阻，总产卵量大大减少。2×10 孢子/mL 的 对东亚飞蝗卵巢发育的抑制作用更为明显。本研究详细阐述了雌性的生殖与免疫投入之间的权衡，为从这些权衡过程中寻找害虫生物防治的靶标提供了可靠依据。
