The Wnt pathway regulates wing morph determination in Acyrthosiphon pisum

Ping Zhou; Xin Zong; Shuo Yan; Junzheng Zhang; Dan Wang; Jie Shen

doi:10.1016/j.ibmb.2023.104003

The Wnt pathway regulates wing morph determination in Acyrthosiphon pisum

Insect Biochem Mol Biol. 2023 Oct:161:104003. doi: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2023.104003. Epub 2023 Aug 30.

Authors

Ping Zhou¹, Xin Zong¹, Shuo Yan¹, Junzheng Zhang¹, Dan Wang², Jie Shen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Biosecurity and MARA Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Management for Plant Quarantine Pests, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
² Department of Plant Biosecurity and MARA Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Management for Plant Quarantine Pests, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. Electronic address: dwang@cau.edu.cn.
³ Department of Plant Biosecurity and MARA Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Management for Plant Quarantine Pests, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. Electronic address: shenjie@cau.edu.cn.

PMID: 37657610
DOI: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2023.104003

Abstract

Wing dimorphism occurs in insects as a survival strategy to adapt to environmental changes. In response to environmental cues, mother aphids transmit signals to their offspring, and the offspring either emerge as winged adults or develop as wingless adults with degeneration of the wing primordia in the early instar stage. However, how the wing morph is determined in the early instar stage is still unclear. Here, we established a surgical sampling method to obtain precise wing primordium tissues for transcriptome analysis. We identified Wnt as a regulator of wing determination in the early second instar stage in the pea aphid. Inhibiting Wnt signaling via knockdown of Wnt2, Wnt11b, the Wnt receptor-encoding gene fz2 or the downstream targets vg and omb resulted in a decreased proportion of winged aphids. Activation of Wnt signaling via knockdown of miR-8, an inhibitor of the Wnt/Wg pathway, led to an increased proportion of winged aphids. Furthermore, the wing primordia of wingless nymphs underwent apoptosis in the early second instar, and cell death was activated by knockdown of fz2 under the wing-inducing condition. These results indicate that the developmental plasticity of aphid wings is modulated by the intrinsic Wnt pathway in response to environmental challenges.

Keywords: Aphid; Apoptosis; Degeneration; Wing dimorphism; Wnt/wg.