Presenilin is involved in larval‐pupal metamorphosis development of Bombyx mori

Abstract

Disruption of the presenilin (ps) genes are the major genetic cause of familial Alzheimer's disease. The silkworm, Bombyx mori (B. mori), is an important model insect. The ps homologue gene in B. mori was identified and characterized. However, the role of ps in B. mori was poorly understood. Here, we found that Bmps was ubiquitously expressed in all the tested tissues during metamorphosis. In the current study, loss‐of‐function analysis of Bmps was performed by the binary transgenic CRISPR/cas9 system. Compared with the wild type, the developmental time of ∆Bmps animals were significantly delayed. In addition, ∆Bmps showed abnormal appendage including antenna, leg, wing and eye during pupal and adult stages. RNA‐seq analysis indicated that apoptosis and proliferation related pathways were affected in ∆Bmps. Moreover, the Hippo pathway was affected by Bmps depletion in brain and wing disc. Our results suggest that PS is essential for maintaining the dynamic balance of apoptosis and proliferation during metamorphosis.

Determination of Key Components in the Bombyx mori p53 Apoptosis Regulation Network Using Y2H-Seq

“…Initially, research on silkworm apoptosis lagged far behind studies conducted in other organisms; however, recent studies have focused on identifying the internal (e.g., hormones and/or lymph) and external factors (e.g., chemicals, UV light, and viruses) that impact its cellular induction. Similarly, significant effort has gone into understanding how apoptosis affects tissue development (e.g., wings) and determining the conditions that drive morphological changes and/or impact tissue organization, such as those frequently seen in the intestine and silk gland [4][5][6][7][8][9]. While progress has also been made in identifying and characterizing the regulatory mechanisms underlying apoptosis-related genes [10][11][12] and the availability of the B. mori genome has facilitated functional studies, the silkworm apoptosis network has yet to be as fully developed as that of Drosophila melanogaster.…”