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. 2018 Oct 30;19(1):784.
doi: 10.1186/s12864-018-5182-z.

Insect anal droplets contain diverse proteins related to gut homeostasis

Tianzhong Jing  1 , Fuxiao Wang  2 , Fenghui Qi  3 , Zhiying Wang  2
Affiliations

Insect anal droplets contain diverse proteins related to gut homeostasis

Tianzhong Jing et al. BMC Genomics. .

Abstract

Background: Insects share similar fundamental molecular principles with mammals in innate immunity. For modulating normal gut microbiota, insects produce phenoloxidase (PO), which is absent in all vertebrates, and reactive nitrogen species (ROS) and antimicrobial proteins (AMPs). However, reports on insect gut phagocytosis are very few. Furthermore, most previous studies measure gene expression at the transcription level. In this study, we provided proteomic evidence on gut modulation of normal microorganisms by investigating the anal droplets from a weevil, Cryptorhynchus lapathi.

Results: The results showed that the anal droplets contained diverse proteins related to physical barriers, epithelium renewal, pattern recognition, phenoloxidase activation, oxidative defense and phagocytosis, but AMPs were not detected. According to annotations, Scarb1, integrin βν, Dscam, spondin or Thbs2s might mediate phagocytosis. As a possible integrin βν pathway, βν activates Rho by an unknown mechanism, and Rho induces accumulation of mDia, which then promotes actin polymerization.

Conclusions: Our results well demonstrated that insect anal droplets can be used as materials to investigate the defense of a host to gut microorganisms and supported to the hypothesis that gut phagocytosis occurs in insects.

Keywords: Anal droplet; Cryptorhynchus lapathi; Innate immunity; Intestine; Phagocytosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The animals used in this study are forest insect pests. No ethics approval is needed.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
SDS-PAGE of the anal droplets. The gel was cut into 11 segments at the red line for Q-TOF. The counts of identified protein from each segment are shown in a barplot
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Anal droplet-derived proteins and possible pathways in innate immune. Proteins of which labels in grey were not detected in the anal droplets. ApoLp, apolipophorins; CAT, catalase; CTLs, C-type lectins; DAP, meso-diaminopimelic acid; FTH ferritin; LPS, lipopolysaccharide; PGN, Peptidoglycan; PGRPs, peptidoglycan recognition proteins; PO, phenoloxidase; proPO, prophenoloxidase; PRX, peroxiredoxin; PXT, peroxinectin; RNS, Reactive nitrogen species; ROS, reactive oxygen species; SOD, superoxide dismutase; TF, transferrin; TLPs, Thaumatin-like proteins; Vg, Vitellogenin; VSP, venom serine protease; ZO-1, Zonula occludens-1; βGBP, beta-1,3-glucan-binding protein
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