Molecular basis of color pattern change and color polymorphism in dragonflies.

由于蜻蜓在视觉上可以识别同种和异种个体，因此它们的体色在其生态学和生殖生物学中起着至关重要的作用。与大多数昆虫不同，一些蜻蜓在性成熟后会戏剧性地改变它们的身体颜色。虽然许多生态学和行为学研究都集中在这个主题上，但对颜色图案形成的分子机制知之甚少。我分析了与蜻蜓不同颜色模式有关的色素和基因。值得注意的是，我发现性别特异性的共色色素氧化还原变化导致一些蜻蜓的黄红色转变，这揭示了动物身体颜色变化的分子机制。

Because dragonflies visually recognize conspecific and heterospecific individuals, their body color plays essential roles in their ecology and reproductive biology. Unlike most insects, some dragonflies change their body color dramatically upon sexual maturation. While many ecological and behavioral studies have been focused on this topic, molecular mechanisms underlying the color pattern formation have been poorly understood. I analyzed pigments and genes that are involved in the different color patterns in dragonflies. Notably, I found that sex-specific redox changes in ommochrome pigments cause the yellow-red color transition in some dragonflies, which unveils a previously unknown molecular mechanism underlying body color change in animals.