Expression and characterization of juvenile hormone binding protein Bmtol gene in silkworm, Bombyx mori

Abstract:

The head of the silkworm is a nerve center and a sense organ, contains antennaes and sensory hair, feels the outside signal, and responds to the external signal delivered to the brain. Juvenile hormone is mainly synthesized and secreted by corpora allata, and it needs to be played with the aid of the hormone binding protein, because the juvenile hormone binding protein is the carrier of juvenile hormone transport and plays a functional in vivo, they have an extremely important function in insects. The objective of this study is to screened and identify a novel BmTOL proteins that it has a conserved structure of the juvenile hormone binding protein family by SilkDB and NCBI database. Its coding gene number is BGIBMGA003404 (GenBank Accession No. KY681053). We also expressed the recombinant protein using the prokaryotic expression system, and then successfully purified the recombinant protein by Ni-NTA chromatography column to generate the polyclonal antibodies. The expression patterns analysis in various tissues showed that both in transcriptional and protein levels Bmtol was higher expressed in head. Furthermore, the expression level of Bmtol gene was higher in newly exuviated silkworm, and expression level of Bmtol gene was lower from at 3 days 5th instar to 7 days pupa, began to increase after the moth. Immunohistochemistry showed that BmTOL protein was localized in the cortex, antennaes and brain of the head, It may be related to the information transmission of the head, and provides an important source of information for the growth and development of silkworm.