title: Structural, evolutionary and functional analysis of APN genes in the Lepidoptera Bombyx mori.
abstract: Aminopeptidases N (APNs), the receptors of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin in the lepidopteran midgut, are involved in the Bt pathogen infection mechanism. In the present work, we screened 102 APNs from SilkDB, ButterflyBase and MonarchBase; 16 APNs were identified from the silkworm (Bombyx mori) and 24 from the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). Syntenic and phylogenetic tree analysis showed that APN genes have developed multi-family genes before evolutionary divergence of the Lepidoptera. The tissue-expression pattern shows some BmAPNs are specifically or highly expressed in the midgut. Bacillus bombysepticus (Bb) is a specific pathogen of B. mori, leading to acute fuliginosa septicemia of the larva. BmAPNs were modulated by real time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis after Bb or Bt oral infection. There were different patterns of induced expression between Bb and Bt challenges, suggesting that B. mori has different responses to infection by the specific pathogen Bb and the nonspecific pathogen Bt. Research on BmAPNs will help us to better understand the evolutionary conservation and functions in Bb or Bt pathogen interaction with the host and to apply this knowledge in agricultural and forestry pest control.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
authors.forename: Tingcai
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
authors.forename: Shengkai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China. Electronic address: xiaqy@swu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qingyou
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xia
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D012831:Bombyx / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D018826:CD13 Antigens / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D019295:Computational Biology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D023061:Gene Order; D049750:Genome, Insect; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D010802:Phylogeny; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D018826:CD13 Antigens
keywords: ALP; APN; Aminopeptidase N (APN); BBMV; Bacillus bombysepticus; Bacillus thuringiensis; Bb; Bt; EST; Evolution; Expression pattern; GPI; Lepidoptera; PIPLC; SNP; Structure; alkaline phosphatase; aminopeptidase N; brush border membrane vesicles; expressed sequence tag; glycosylphosphatidylinositol; phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C; single nucleotide polymorphisms