Seasonal shifts in accumulation of glycerol biosynthetic gene transcripts in mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), larvae

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1 Ecosystem Science and Management Program, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
2 Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
3 Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2311v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Ecology, Entomology, Molecular Biology, Zoology
Keywords
bark beetle, mountain pine beetle, overwintering, glycerol, seasonal, cyroprotectant, freeze intolerant, Dendroctonus ponderosae, Coleoptera, Curculionidae
Copyright
© 2016 Fraser et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Fraser JD, Bonnett TR, Keeling CI, Huber DP. 2016. Seasonal shifts in accumulation of glycerol biosynthetic gene transcripts in mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), larvae. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2311v1

Abstract

Winter mortality is a major factor regulating population size of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Glycerol is the major cryoprotectant in this freeze intolerant insect. We report findings from a gene expression study on an overwintering mountain pine beetle population over the course of 35 weeks. mRNA transcript levels suggest glycerol production in the mountain pine beetle occurs through glycogenolytic, gluconeogenic and potentially glyceroneogenic pathways, but not from metabolism of lipids. A two-week lag period between fall glycogen phosphorylase transcript and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase transcript up-regulation suggests that gluconeogenesis serves as a secondary glycerol-production process, subsequent to exhaustion of the primary glycogenolytic source. These results provide a first look at the details of seasonal gene expression related to the production of glycerol in the mountain pine beetle.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.