The cockroach Blattella germanica obtains nitrogen from uric acid through a metabolic pathway shared with its bacterial endosymbiont

ABSTRACT: Uric acid stored in the fat body of cockroaches is a nitrogen reservoir mobilized in times of scarcity. The discovery of urease in Blattabacterium cuenoti, the primary endosymbiont of cockroaches, suggests that the endosymbiont may participate in cockroach nitrogen economy. However, bacterial urease may only be one piece in the entire nitrogen recycling process from insect uric acid. Thus, in addition to the uricolytic pathway to urea, there must be glutamine synthetase assimilating the released ammonia by the urease reaction to enable the stored nitrogen to be metabolically usable. None of the Blattabacterium genomes sequenced to date possess genes encoding for those enzymes. To test the host's contribution to the process, we have sequenced and analysed Blattella germanica transcriptomes

ORGANISM(S): Blattella germanica

SUBMITTER: Guillem Ylla 

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-63921 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress