Ips typographus (L.), the eight-spined spruce bark beetle, causes severe damage throughout Eurasian spruce forests and suitable nuclear markers are needed in order to study its population structure on a genetic level. Two closely related genes encoding a-amylase in I. typographus were characterized and named AmyA and AmyB. Both a-amylase paralogs consisted of six exons and five introns. AmyA encodes a polypeptide of 483 amino acids, whereas AmyB has two alternative transcripts encoding polypeptides of 483 and 370 amino acids. The expression levels of both genes were high during larval stage and adulthood. The AmyB transcripts were absent in the pupal stage. A modification of the allozyme staining method allowed us to detect two clusters of bands on the electrophoretic gel that may correspond to the two a-amylase genes. There was a correlation between the lack of AmyB expression in pupa and the absence of the fast migrating isozyme cluster at this stage, suggesting that the faster migrating isoforms are products of the AmyB gene, whereas the slowly migrating bands are derived from the AmyA. C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) of the bark beetle Ips typographus is derived from a gene that includes eight exons and spans over 7100 nucleotides (nt). By means of two transcription starts, the gene generates two mRNA isoforms that are present in similar amounts in the larvae, pupae and adults. The A isoform includes exon IA of 115 nt, which is followed by intron 1a extending to position 3457 of the gene. The B mRNA isoform begins with exon IB (100 nt) that occupies positions 3291-3390 within the 1a intron. Exons II to VII are included in both mRNA isoforms. The gene contains 31.6% (36.5% in the translated region) of the GC nucleotides. Two transcription starts and the exon/intron organization distinguish bark beetle G6PD from the homologous genes known in other insects. Two enzyme variants were detected in the protein extracts of individual bark beetles but their relationship to the A and B mRNA isoforms is uncertain.
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