Role of juvenile hormone in the hypermetabolic production of water revealed by the O₂ consumption and thermovision images of larvae of insects fed a diet of dry food

Terrestrial Insects with Tracheae Breath by Actively Regulating Ventilatory Movements: Physiological Similarities to Humans

“…Development of new electrocardiographic methods to study the insect heart have surprisingly revealed that the structure and function of the insect heart is based on similar, purely myogenic, involuntary, myocardial pulsations, driven by similar pacemaker nodi known to regulate the human heart. Selected cardioactive or cardioinhibitory drugs accelerate or inhibit, respectively, pulsations of insect hearts in the same fashion they do in human hearts (Sláma et al 2013).…”

“…Recently, it has been found (Sláma and Lukáš 2016) that under exceptional circumstances, such as a massive production of water by total combustion of dietary lipids, insects can increase their O2 consumption rate to incredibly high, 20000 µl of O2/g/h. This remarkable insect phenomenon was called hypermetabolism KryspinSǿrensen 1979, Sláma andLukáš 2013). This metabolic intensity of insects is estimated to be 500-fold higher when calculated per unit of mass than that of the human body (40 µl O2/g/h, at 37°C).…”

Impairment of Development and Reproductivity of the Egyptian cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis Boisduval (Noctuidae: Lepidoptera) by Cycloheximide.

“…All compounds induced the production of giant larvae which failed to pupate (Kostyukovskya et al, 2000). Some larvae of the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella, which consumed large amounts of a diet treated with JHA [methyl 2,7dimethyl-9-(2-oxolanyl) 2,4 nonadienoate], appeared as giant larvae (Slama and Lukas, 2013). Potent inhibitors of JHE, including phosphoramidothiolate-type and trifluoromethylketone were synthesized.…”

“…Among botanicals, some plant extracts or isolated plant products had been reported to induce permanent nymphs in various insects, such as O. fasciatus (Hemiptera) after injection of the newly moulted last instar nymphs with azadirachtin (Dorn et al, 1986); O. fasciatus and the cotton stainer bug Dysdercus peruvianus after topical application of Manilkara subsericea (Sapotaceae) extracts onto 4 th instar nymphs (Fernandes et al, 2013); S. litura (Lepidoptera) after treatment of larvae with acetone leaf extract of Withania somnifera (Solanaceae) (Gaur and Kumar, 2010); and the confused flour beetle Tribolium confusum (Coleoptera) after treatment of 5 th instar and 6 th instar larvae with 1µg/µl of Andrographolide (a terpenoid isolated from the leaves of Andrographis paniculata, Acanthaceae) (Lingampally et al, 2013). Feeding of G. mellonella larvae, for a long time, on a diet treated with the JH analogue [methyl 2,7dimethyl-9-(2-oxolanyl) 2,4 nonadienoate; 0.1 mg/g of diet] induced permanent larvae (Slama and Lukas, 2013). Apart from IGRs and botanicals, El-Gammal et al (1986) observed permanent nymphs in S. gregaria after exposure of gamma irradiation against the 3 rd instar nymphs.…”

An Alternative Look at Insect Hormones

“…The true physiological function of PG depends on the production of special, hitherto unknown, adipokinetic superhormone, which enables the juvenile, young larval instars to grow and survive on dry food. The hormone stimulates the augmented supply of metabolic water by the total combustion of the dietary lipid (Sláma and Lukáš 2013). This relatively prosaic hormonal role of the PG has been overshadowed by 50 years of persistent belief in the falsified hypothesis that the PG produced the moulting hormone.…”