He Shulin, Jiang Bin, Chakraborty Amrita, Yu Guozhi
College of Life Science, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China.
College of Life Science, Anhui Normal University, Beijing Rd. 1, Wuhu 241000, China.
Insects. 2022 Aug 30;13(9):786. doi: 10.3390/insects13090786.
Insects closely interact with plants with multiple genes involved in their interactions. β-glucosidase, constituted mainly by glycoside hydrolase family 1 (GH1), is a crucial enzyme in insects to digest plant cell walls and defend against natural enemies with sequestered plant metabolites. To gain more insights into the role of this enzyme in plant-insect interactions, we analyzed the evolutionary history of the GH1 gene family with publicly available insect genomes. We found that GH1 is widely present in insects, while the gene numbers are significantly higher in insect herbivores directly feeding on plant cell walls than in other insects. After reconciling the insect GH1 gene tree with a species tree, we found that the patterns of duplication and loss of GH1 genes differ among insect orders, which may be associated with the evolution of their ecology. Furthermore, the majority of insects' GH1 genes were tandem-duplicated and subsequently went through neofunctionalization. This study shows the evolutionary history of an important gene family GH1 in insects and facilitates our understanding of the evolution of insect-plant interactions.
昆虫与植物密切相互作用，有多个基因参与其中。β-葡萄糖苷酶主要由糖苷水解酶家族1（GH1）构成，是昆虫消化植物细胞壁以及利用植物代谢产物抵御天敌的关键酶。为了更深入了解这种酶在植物-昆虫相互作用中的作用，我们利用公开可用的昆虫基因组分析了GH1基因家族的进化历史。我们发现GH1在昆虫中广泛存在，而直接以植物细胞壁为食的昆虫食草动物中的基因数量显著高于其他昆虫。在将昆虫GH1基因树与物种树进行比对后，我们发现GH1基因的复制和丢失模式在不同昆虫目之间存在差异，这可能与其生态进化有关。此外，大多数昆虫的GH1基因是串联重复的，随后经历了新功能化。本研究展示了昆虫中重要基因家族GH1的进化历史，有助于我们理解昆虫-植物相互作用的进化。
