Abstract
The cells of prothoracic glands (PG) are the main site of synthesis and secretion of ecdysteroids, the biochemical products of cholesterol conversion to steroids that shape the morphogenic development of insects. Despite the availability of genome sequences from several insect species and the extensive knowledge of certain signalling pathways that underpin ecdysteroidogenesis, the spectrum of signalling molecules and ecdysteroidogenic cascades is still not fully comprehensive. To fill this gap and obtain the complete list of cell membrane receptors expressed in PG cells, we used combinatory bioinformatic, proteomic and transcriptomic analysis and quantitative PCR to annotate and determine the expression profiles of genes identified as putative cell membrane receptors of the model insect species, Bombyx mori, and subsequently enrich the repertoire of signalling pathways that are present in its PG cells. The genome annotation dataset we report here highlights modules and pathways that may be directly involved in ecdysteroidogenesis and aims to disseminate data and assist other researchers in the discovery of the role of such receptors and their ligands.
Highlights
Background & SummaryInsect cell membrane receptors are excellent drug targets for pest control and management[1,2]
The prothoracic gland (PG) cells are the main site of synthesis of ecdysteroids from cholesterol and their subsequent secretion[10,11]
Much work on the ligands and receptors that stimulate or inhibit ecdysteroidogenesis has been carried out in model insects such as Bombyx mori[12,14,17], whose extensive genome annotation is publicly available with genes mapped to chromosome and scaffold locations and the sequences of their coding protein(s)[18,19]
Summary
Insect cell membrane receptors are excellent drug targets for pest control and management[1,2]. Critical to our approach was the visualization of RNA-seq data through the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genome Browser[22] track data hubs webpage, hosting the Bombyx mori reference genome (Data Citation 4), that allowed us to explain false positive and false negative hits (Tables 1 and 2) in our LC-MS/MS, RNA-seq and qPCR data All these datasets were integrated back into i) the annotated list of Bombyx mori genes that is publicly available (Fig. 1 and Data Citation 1) ii) the publicly available KEGG23 signalling pathways of Bombyx mori that we further annotated, visualized and present in Fig. 2 iii) the UCSC Genome Browser[22] track data hubs webpage where results of the RNA-Seq samples analyses can be visualised by pasting the following link (http://epigenomics.fleming.gr/tracks/hs_trackhubs/ekpa_dedos_2/hub.txt) and pasting the coordinates of a gene of interest. Additional information for a comprehensive understanding of the cell membrane receptors and the signalling pathways in PG cells is described in a related research paper[20]
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