Imaginal disc growth factor maintains cuticle structure and controls melanization in the spot pattern formation of Bombyx mori.

ABSTRACT: The complex stripes and patterns of insects play key roles in behavior and ecology. However, the fine-scale regulation mechanisms underlying pigment formation and morphological divergence remain largely unelucidated. Here we demonstrated that imaginal disc growth factor (IDGF) maintains cuticle structure and controls melanization in spot pattern formation of Bombyx mori. Moreover, our knockout experiments showed that IDGF is suggested to impact the expression levels of the ecdysone inducible transcription factor E75A and pleiotropic factors apt-like and Toll8/spz3, to further control the melanin metabolism. Furthermore, the untargeted metabolomics analyses revealed that BmIDGF significantly affected critical metabolites involved in phenylalanine, beta-alanine, purine, and tyrosine metaboli

SUBMITTER: Gao Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7544146 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature