Physiology and Molecular Biology of Insect Parasitism

昆虫寄生的生理学和分子生物学

• 批准号: 8703646
• 负责人: Nancy Beckage
• 金额: $ 9.77万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1987
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1987-12-15 至 1990-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8703646&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Physiology; Molecular; Biology; Insect; Parasitism

Parasites frequently cause their host to show developmental and biochemical abnormalities which disturb the normal growth and reproduction of the organism. Some effects appear to be mediated by factors associated with the parasites such as bacteria or viruses, in addition to the parasites themselves and the stress invoed by their feeding and consumption of host nutrients. Using the tobacco hornworm and a braconid wasp parasite as a model system, Dr. Beckage has shown that a virus injected by the parasite into the host stimulates biosynthesis of novel proteins found only in parasitgized larvae. The goal of this grant will be to characterize the proteins involved and study their regulation to determine if the genes encoding for their synthesis are components of the host, parasite, or viral genome (s) and clarify the mode of their induction. The tissues producing the proteins will be identified and the physiological role of the proteins will be studied to gain fresh insights into the developmental dynamics of how the physiology of the host is modulated to facilitate successful parasitism. This parasitic wasp, Cotesia congregata, serves as"a biological control of several insect pests, and many closely related species are similarly important in agricultural and forest ecosystems. Thus the information gained from this study may have important implications for design of novel strategies to control a variety of insect pests in addition to serving as a valuable parasitological model which will enhance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in regulation of host physiology at txe host-parasite interface. Biotechnology could be used to express normally parasitism-specific genes in the unparasitized state, for example, causing developmental arrest prior to reproduction.

寄生虫经常使寄主表现出发育和生化异常，扰乱生物体的正常生长和繁殖。一些影响似乎是由与寄生虫相关的因素，如细菌或病毒，以及寄生虫本身和它们摄食和消耗宿主养分所引起的压力所介导的。贝克奇博士使用烟草角虫和一种茧蜂寄生虫作为模型系统，证明了寄生虫注射到宿主体内的病毒可以刺激新蛋白质的生物合成，这种蛋白质只有在寄生的幼虫中才有。这项资助的目标将是确定所涉及的蛋白质的特征并研究它们的调节，以确定编码它们合成的基因是宿主、寄生虫还是病毒基因组的组成部分(S)，并澄清它们的诱导方式。将鉴定产生这些蛋白质的组织，并研究这些蛋白质的生理作用，以获得对寄主生理如何调节以促进成功寄生的发育动力学的新见解。这种寄生的黄蜂，Cotesia regregata，是对几种害虫的生物控制，许多密切相关的物种在农业和森林生态系统中也同样重要。因此，这项研究所获得的信息不仅可以作为一个有价值的寄生学模型，还可以为设计控制各种害虫的新策略提供重要的指导意义，这将增强我们对寄主-寄生虫界面上寄主生理调节机制的理解。生物技术可以用来在未被寄生的状态下正常表达寄生虫特有的基因，例如，在繁殖之前导致发育停滞。