Knockout BR-C induces premature expression of E93 thus triggering adult differentiation under larval morphology

  • Pest Manag Sci. 2024 Dec 6. doi: 10.1002/ps.8592.
Chang Liu  #  1  2 ,  Mian-Zhi Wu  #  1  2 ,  Zi-Jing Zheng  1  2 ,  Shu-Ting Fan  1  2 ,  Jin-Fang Tan  1  2 ,  Yaoyu Jiao  3 ,  Subba Reddy Palli  4 ,  Guan-Heng Zhu  1  2
Affiliations
  • 1. School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China.
  • 2. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China.
  • 3. Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • 4. Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 39641237 DOI: 10.1002/ps.8592
Abstract

Background: Holometabolan pupal-specifier broad-complex (BR-C) and adult specifier ecdysone-induced protein 93F (E93) are essential for metamorphosis; however, their interaction and effects on programmed cell death and cell differentiation during pupation remain unclear.

Results: Here, multiple single-guide RNA (sgRNA)-mediated mosaic knockout of BR-C induced a deformed larva/pupa intermediate phenotype in Spodoptera frugiperda. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis showed that the adult specifier E93 was prematurely expressed in the BR-C mutants during the penultimate and last instar larval stages. Additionally, histological observation and TUNEL assay showed that Apoptosis in the fat body and midgut was activated in the larval tissues; astonishingly, the adult midgut appeared in the pupae of BR-C mutants.

Conclusion: Overall, the results demonstrated that the premature expression of E93 induced by lack of BR-C triggers adult differentiation during the larval stages, which revealed the inhibitory effect of BR-C on E93 during metamorphosis in S. frugiperda. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Keywords
CRISPR/Cas9; Spodoptera frugiperda; apoptosis; metamorphosis; sgRNA.
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