Abstract
Background Juvenile hormones (JH) play crucial role in regulating development and reproduction in insects. The most common form of JH is JH III, derived from MF through epoxidation by CYP15 enzymes. However, in the higher dipterans, such as the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, a bis-epoxide form of JHB3, accounted most of the JH detected. Moreover, these higher dipterans have lost the CYP15 gene from their genomes. As a result, the identity of the P450 epoxidase in the JH biosynthesis pathway in higher dipterans remains unknown.
Results In this study, we show that Cyp6g2 serves as the major JH epoxidase responsible for the biosynthesis of JHB3 and JH III in D. melanogaster. The Cyp6g2 is predominantly expressed in the corpus allatum (CA), concurring with the expression pattern of jhamt, another well-studied gene that is crucial in the last steps of JH biosynthesis. Mutation in Cyp6g2 leads to severe disruptions in larval-pupal metamorphosis and exhibits reproductive deficiencies, exceeding those seen in jhamt mutants. Notably, Cyp6g2−/− ::jhamt2 double mutants all died at the pupal stage but could be rescued through the topical application of JH analogs. JH titer analyses revealed that both Cyp6g2−/− mutant and jhamt 2 mutant lacking JHB3 and JH III, while overexpression of Cyp6g2 or jhamt caused a significant increase in JHB3 and JH III titer.
Conclusions These findings collectively established that Cyp6g2 as the major JH epoxidase in the higher dipterans and laid the groundwork for the further understanding of JH biosynthesis. Moreover, these findings pave the way for developing specific Cyp6g2 inhibitors as insect growth regulators or insecticides.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-01910-4
Funding Information
This work was supported by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (KQTD20180411143628272 to SL), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31930014 and 32220103003 to SL; 32200398 to QJ; 32100375 to WL), the Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture Project (NT2021003 to SL), the Department of Science and Technology in Guangdong Province (2019B090905003 and 2019A0102006 to SL), the Natural Science Foundation in Guangdong Province (2022A1515010938 to QJ; 2023A1515010409 to WL), and the “Xu Hang” Project for Excellent Doctors of Guangzhou City Science and Technology Plan Projects (SL2023A04J01127 to QJ).
Repository Citation
Jia, Qiangqiang; Yang, Liu; Wen, Jiamin; Liu, Suning; Wen, Di; Luo, Wei; Wang, Weihua; Palli, Subba R.; and Sheng, Li, "Cyp6g2 is the major P450 epoxidase responsible for juvenile hormone biosynthesis in Drosophila melanogaster" (2024). Entomology Faculty Publications. 242.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/entomology_facpub/242
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Notes/Citation Information
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