Evolution of the Cholesterol Biosynthesis Pathway in Animals

Zhang, Tingting; Yuan, Dong‐Wei; Xie, Jun; Lei, Yongxing; Li, Jianguo; Fang, Gangqi; Tian, Ling; Liu, Jia-Cheng; Cui, Yingying; Zhang, Min; Xiao, Youli; Xu, Yan; Zhang, Jianzhen; Zhu, Maoyan; Zhan, Shuai; Li, Sheng

doi:10.1093/molbev/msz167

Cited by 44 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Cholesterol and its derivatives are essential for all eukaryotes as both a vital structural component of cellular membrane and a precursor to important biomolecules . However, unlike mammals, insects and other arthropods cannot synthesize sterols de novo , and thus typically obtain them from food. Previous studies have demonstrated that interfering with dietary cholesterol usage delays insect growth and increases insect mortality …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NPC1b as a novel target in controlling the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera

Zheng

Yue

Kuang

et al. 2020

Pest Management Science

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BACKGROUND: Insects cannot synthesize sterols and must acquire them from food. The mechanisms underlying how insects uptake dietary sterols are largely unknown except that NPC1b, an integral membrane protein, has been shown to be responsible for dietary cholesterol uptake in Drosophila melanogaster. However, whether NPC1b orthologs in other insect species, particularly the economically important pests, function similarly remains to be determined. RESULTS:In this study, we characterized the function of NPC1b in Helicoverpa armigera, a global pest that causes severe yield losses to many important crops. Limiting dietary cholesterol uptake to insects significantly inhibited food ingestion and weight gain. Compared to the wild-type H. armigera, the CRISPR/Cas9-edited NPC1b mutant larvae were incapable of getting adequate cholesterol and died in their early life stage. Gene expression profile and in situ hybridization analyses indicated that NPC1b was mainly expressed in the midgut where dietary cholesterol was absorbed. Expression of NPC1b was also correlated with the feeding life stages and was especially upregulated during early larval instars. Protein-ligand docking and sequence similarity analyses further demonstrated that NPC1b proteins of lepidopteran insects shared a relatively conserved cholesterol binding region, NPC1b_NTD, which, however, was highly divergent from bees-derived sequences.CONCLUSION: NPC1b was crucial for dietary cholesterol uptake and growth of H. armigera, and therefore could serve as an insecticide target for the development of a novel pest-management approach to control this economically significant insect pest with little off-target effect on bees and sterol-autotrophic animals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NPC1b as a novel target in controlling the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera

Zheng

Yue

Kuang

et al. 2020

Pest Management Science

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“…b Distribution of identified genes in each taxon group. The phylogenetic topology was based on previous studies 97 , 98 . Note that only representative taxa are listed in the tree; for insects, a total of 233 species from 20 orders were investigated (see “Methods”), while all the animal taxa listed in the NR database were subject to screening.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two novel venom proteins underlie divergent parasitic strategies between a generalist and a specialist parasite

et al. 2021

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Parasitoids are ubiquitous in natural ecosystems. Parasitic strategies are highly diverse among parasitoid species, yet their underlying genetic bases are poorly understood. Here, we focus on the divergent adaptation of a specialist and a generalist drosophilid parasitoids. We find that a novel protein (Lar) enables active immune suppression by lysing the host lymph glands, eventually leading to successful parasitism by the generalist. Meanwhile, another novel protein (Warm) contributes to a passive strategy by attaching the laid eggs to the gut and other organs of the host, leading to incomplete encapsulation and helping the specialist escape the host immune response. We find that these diverse parasitic strategies both originated from lateral gene transfer, followed with duplication and specialization, and that they might contribute to the shift in host ranges between parasitoids. Our results increase our understanding of how novel gene functions originate and how they contribute to host adaptation.

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“…The absence of this family from the cnidarian species studied here implies that these species lack de novo cholesterol synthesis and would need to receive this important signaling molecule from their environment and diet. Studies on the evolution of the cholesterol biosynthesis genes found losses in Cnidaria 58 . This is in line with research that indicated cholesterol as the most prominent sterol (50–63%) in lipid samples of cnidarians as a result of their generally carnivorous diet 59 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cytochrome P450 (CYP) superfamily in cnidarians

Pankov

McArthur

Gold

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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The cytochrome P450 (CYP) superfamily is a diverse and important enzyme family, playing a central role in chemical defense and in synthesis and metabolism of major biological signaling molecules. The CYPomes of four cnidarian genomes (Hydra vulgaris, Acropora digitifera, Aurelia aurita, Nematostella vectensis) were annotated; phylogenetic analyses determined the evolutionary relationships amongst the sequences and with existing metazoan CYPs. 155 functional CYPs were identified and 90 fragments. Genes were from 24 new CYP families and several new subfamilies; genes were in 9 of the 12 established metazoan CYP clans. All species had large expansions of clan 2 diversity, with H. vulgaris having reduced diversity for both clan 3 and mitochondrial clan. We identified potential candidates for xenobiotic metabolism and steroidogenesis. That each genome contained multiple, novel CYP families may reflect the large evolutionary distance within the cnidarians, unique physiology in the cnidarian classes, and/or different ecology of the individual species.

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Evolution of the Cholesterol Biosynthesis Pathway in Animals

Cited by 44 publications

References 49 publications

NPC1b as a novel target in controlling the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera

NPC1b as a novel target in controlling the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera

Two novel venom proteins underlie divergent parasitic strategies between a generalist and a specialist parasite

The cytochrome P450 (CYP) superfamily in cnidarians

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