Development of a simple gene delivery system into insects by lipofection

萤火虫荧光素酶基因通过体内脂质转染在6目70多种昆虫中成功表达。通过脂肪转染表达编码蜕皮激素失活酶的E22O基因，可有效降低20-羟基蜕皮激素滴度，阻断家蚕蜕皮。将该基因传递系统与荧光素酶实验相结合，发现家蚕麻痹肽是由一个多顺反子mRNA编码的。这些结果表明，体内脂肪检测可用于分析多种昆虫基因的功能或表达控制机制。

The firefly luciferase gene was successfully expressed by in vivo lipofection in more than 70 species of insects belonging to six orders. Expression of the E22O gene encoding an ecdysteroid inactivating enzyme by lipofection effectively decreased the 20-hydroxyecdysone titer and blocked molting in B. mori. Combining this gene delivery system with the luciferase assay revealed that the silkworm paralytic peptide is encoded by a polycistronic mRNA. These results indicate that in vivo lipofection can be used to analyze functions or expression control mechanisms of genes in varieties of insects.