The cecropin-prophenoloxidase regulatory mechanism is a cross-species physiological function in mosquitoes

Wei-Ting Liu; Cheng-Chen Chen; Dar-Der Ji; Wu-Chun Tu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104478

The cecropin-prophenoloxidase regulatory mechanism is a cross-species physiological function in mosquitoes

iScience. 2022 May 30;25(6):104478. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104478. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Wei-Ting Liu^{1

2}, Cheng-Chen Chen³, Dar-Der Ji^{3

4}, Wu-Chun Tu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
² Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan.
³ Department of Tropical Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁴ One Health Research Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Entomology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan.

Abstract

This study's aim was to investigate whether the cecropin-prophenoloxidase regulatory mechanism is a cross-species physiological function among mosquitoes. BLAST and phylogenetic analysis revealed that three mosquito cecropin Bs, namely Aedes albopictus cecropin B (Aalcec B), Armigeres subalbatus cecropin B2 (Ascec B2), and Culex quinquefasciatus cecropin B1 (Cqcec B1), play crucial roles in cuticle formation during pupal development via the regulation of prophenoloxidase 3 (PPO 3). The effects of cecropin B knockdown were rescued in a cross-species manner by injecting synthetic cecropin B peptide into pupae. Further investigations showed that these three cecropin B peptides bind to TTGG(A/C)A motifs within each of the PPO 3 DNA fragments obtained from these three mosquitoes. These results suggest that Aalcec B, Ascec B2, and Cqcec B1 each play an important role as a transcription factor in cuticle formation and that similar cecropin-prophenoloxidase regulatory mechanisms exist in multiple mosquito species.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Developmental biology; Molecular biology.