Molecular Genetics of Insect Adenotropic Neuropeptides

昆虫促腺神经肽的分子遗传学

• 批准号: 9210656
• 负责人: Peter Bryant
• 金额: $ 20.6万
• 依托单位: University of California-Irvine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-08-01 至 1996-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9210656&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Molecular; Genetics; Insect; Adenotropic; Neuropeptides

The growth and reproduction of insects is controlled by hormones released from the endocrine glands. These glands are, in turn, controlled by specific neuropeptides produced in small groups of cells in the brain. Molecular genetics and DNA cloning methods will be used to investigate the control of production and the functions of one of these neuropeptides, named PTTH (prothoracicotropic hormones). The studies will be carried out using the fruitfly Drosophila, which is the organism of choice for molecular genetic studies. The idea that PTTH controls the production of molting hormone will be tested by determining the levels of PTTH and molting hormone at different developmental stages and in insects affected by mutations that perturb growth. The PTTH gene will be cloned, and synthetic PTTH derived from the cloned gene will be used in experiments to investigate how PTTH controls its target organ, the prothoracic gland, Genetic techniques will be used to disrupt the PTTH gene in order to identify all of the processes that it controls. The results of these studies promise to extend our understanding of the hormonal control of insect growth and lead to novel strategies for designing new insect control agents. In addition, they will provide a new way of investigating the basic neurohormonal mechanisms underlying control of reproduction in other organisms including man.

昆虫的生长和繁殖是由内分泌腺释放的激素控制的。反过来，这些腺体又由大脑中几个细胞群产生的特定神经肽控制。分子遗传学和DNA克隆方法将被用来研究其中一种神经肽PTTH(促胸腺激素原)的生产控制和功能。这些研究将使用果蝇进行，果蝇是分子遗传学研究的首选生物。PTTH控制蜕皮激素产生的想法将通过测定不同发育阶段的PTTH和蜕皮激素水平以及受干扰生长的突变影响的昆虫中的PTTH和蜕皮激素水平来检验。PTTH基因将被克隆，从克隆的基因衍生的合成PTTH将用于实验，研究PTTH如何控制其靶器官前胸腺，基因技术将被用来干扰PTTH基因，以确定它控制的所有过程。这些研究的结果有望扩大我们对荷尔蒙控制昆虫生长的理解，并导致设计新的昆虫防治剂的新策略。此外，它们将提供一种新的方法来研究包括人类在内的其他生物体中控制生殖的基本神经激素机制。