Abstract
Clip domain serine proteases play vital roles in various innate immune functions and in embryonic development. Nilaparvata lugens proclotting enzymes (NlPCEs) belong to this protease family. NlPCE1 was reported to be involved in innate immunity, whereas the role of other NlPCEs is unclear. In the present study, N. lugens proclotting enzyme-3 (NlPCE3) was cloned and characterized. NlPCE3 contains a signal peptide, a clip domain, and a trypsin-like serine protease domain. NlPCE3 was expressed in all tissues examined (gut, fat body, and ovary), and at all developmental stages. Immunofluorescence staining showed that NlPCE3 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm and cytomembrane of follicular cells. Double stranded NlPCE3 RNA interference clearly inhibited the expression of NlPCE3, resulting in abnormal egg formation and obstruction of ovulation. These results indicate that NlPCE3 plays an important role in egg production in N. lugens.
Highlights
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is one of the most harmful rice crop pest insects throughout Asia and causes tremendous economic losses upon emergence [1]
In our previous study of N. lugens ovarian transcriptome, we found N. lugens proclotting enzyme-3 (NlPCE3) was highly expressed in the ovary, which implied NlPCE3 to be important in ovarian development
The predicted protein NlPCE3 is deduced with a molecular mass of approximately 52.2 kDa and a calculated pI value of 8.94
Summary
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is one of the most harmful rice crop pest insects throughout Asia and causes tremendous economic losses upon emergence [1]. N. lugens develops resistance to pest-resistant rice varieties and insecticides, making it hard to effectively control. Genes involved in ovarian development or oogenesis are attractive targets for controlling N. lugens through interfering with reproduction [3,4]. Genes in N. lugens genome [5]. PCEs belong to the clip-domain serine protease (clip-SPs) family, which play vital roles in embryonic development and various innate immune functions in invertebrates such as antimicrobial activity, cell adhesion, hemolymph clotting, pattern recognition, and regulation of the prophenoloxidase system [6]. PCE in the horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus was the first serine protease-containing clip domain protein identified, and the domain was named such because it can be drawn in the shape of a paper clip in a schematic form to show the disulfide linkages [7,8]
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