Huang Qitong, Ma Qian, Liu Xiaobin, Zhu-Salzman Keyan, Cheng Weining
Shandong Institute of Sericulture, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Yantai 265503, China.
Key Laboratory of Plant Protection Resources and Pest Management of Ministry of Education, College of Plant Protection, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China.
Insects. 2025 Jun 20;16(7):649. doi: 10.3390/insects16070649.
Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) play crucial roles in organismal adaptation to stress tolerance. , a devastating insect wheat pest, undergoes long obligatory larval diapause to survive temperature extremes during summer and winter. To elucidate the function of sHsps in this process, two sHsp-encoding genes ( and ) were characterized from , and their responsiveness to diapause and thermal stress, as well as their roles in cold stress, was analyzed. Both and possessed the canonical α-crystallin domain and lacked introns. Quantitative PCR indicated significant upregulation of and during diapause, especially in summer and winter. Notably, exhibited higher expression in summer relative to winter, whereas showed the opposite profile. Moreover, short-term heat shock (≥35 °C) in over-summering larvae or cold shock (≤-10 °C) in over-wintering larvae was found to trigger transcriptional upregulation of both genes, while prolonged temperature extremes (i.e., 45-50 °C or -15 °C) did not elicit a comparable response. RNA interference-mediated knockdown of both genes significantly increased the mortality of larvae under cold stress. These findings indicate the importance of both in diapause and environmental adaptation in .
小热休克蛋白（sHsps）在生物体适应应激耐受性方面发挥着关键作用。麦长管蚜是一种具有毁灭性的小麦害虫，它会经历长时间的幼虫滞育，以在夏季和冬季的极端温度下存活。为了阐明sHsps在此过程中的功能，从麦长管蚜中鉴定了两个编码sHsp的基因（和），并分析了它们对滞育和热应激的反应能力，以及它们在冷应激中的作用。和都具有典型的α-晶状体蛋白结构域且无内含子。定量PCR表明，在滞育期间，尤其是在夏季和冬季，和显著上调。值得注意的是，相对于冬季，在夏季表达较高，而则呈现相反的模式。此外，发现越夏幼虫的短期热激（≥35°C）或越冬幼虫的冷激（≤-10°C）会触发这两个基因的转录上调，而长时间的极端温度（即45-50°C或-15°C）并未引发类似的反应。RNA干扰介导的这两个基因的敲低显著增加了麦长管蚜幼虫在冷应激下的死亡率。这些发现表明和在麦长管蚜的滞育和环境适应中都很重要。
