Effect of short neuropeptide F signaling on larval feeding in Mythimna separata

Mythimna separata is a notorious phytophagous pest which poses serious threats to cereal crops owing to the gluttony of the larvae.Because short neuropeptide F(sNPF)and its receptor sNPFR are involved in a diversity of physiological functions,especially in functions related to feeding in insects,it is a molecular target for pest control.Herein,an sNPF and 2 sNPFRs were identified and cloned from M.separata.Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the sNPF and its receptors had a highly conserved RLRFamide C-terminus and 7 transmembrane domains,respectively.The sNPF and its receptor genes were distributed across larval periods and tissues,but 2 receptors had distinct expression patterns.The starvation-induced assay elucidated that sNPF and sNPFR expression levels were downregulated under food deprivation and recovered with subsequent re-feeding.RNA interference knockdown of sNPF,sNPFR1,and sNPFR2 by injection of double-stranded RNA into larvae not only suppressed food consumption and increased body size and weight,but also led to decrease of glycogen and total lipid contents,and increase of trehalose compared with double-stranded green fluorescent protein injection.Furthermore,molecular docking was performed on the interaction mode between sNPFR protein and its ligand sNPF based on the 3-dimensional models constructed by AlphaFold;the results indicated that both receptors were presumably activated by the mature peptide sNPF-2.These results revealed that sNPF signaling played a considerably vital role in the feeding regulation of M.separata and represents a potential control target for this pest.

The general odorant receptor GmolOR9 from Grapholita molesta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is mainly tuned to eight host-plant volatiles

Grapholita molesta is one of the most destructive fruit pests distributed worldwide.Odorant receptors(ORs)located on the dendritic membrane of chemosensory neurons are deemed to be key molecules for sensing exogenous chemical signals.In this study,GmolOR9,a general OR from G.molesta,was functionally characterized.Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed that GniolOR9 was more highly expressed in adults than in other stages,including eggs,larvae,and pupae.GmolOR9 expression was highly significantly more in the antennae of females than in those of males,and the highest level occurred in the antennae of 3-day-old female adults.GmolOR9 was broadly tuned to eight of 47 odorant components tested including(Z)-3-hexenyl acetate,butyl propionate,ethyl hexanoate,ethyl heptanoate,1-hexanol,(Z)-3-hexenol,2-ethyl-1-hexanol,and linalool,by in vitro heterologous expression.Furthermore,electroantennogram responses indicated that the efTects of dsOR9-injected females to(Z)-3-hexenyl acetate dramatically decreased.These results suggested that GmolOR9 might be involved in detecting hostplant volatiles.Moreover,(Z)-3-hexenyl acetate might serve as a potential attractant for the biological control of G.molesta.

Degree dependence entropy descriptor for complex networks

In order to supply better accordance for mod eling and simulation of complex networks, a new degree dependence entropy （DDE） descriptor is proposed to describe the degree dependence relationship and corre sponding characteristic in this paper. First of all, degrees of vertices and the shortest path lengths between all pairs of ,ertices are computed. Then the degree dependence matrices under different shortest path lengths are con structed. At last the DDEs are extracted from the degree dependence matrices. Simulation results show that the DDE descriptor can reflect the complexity of degree dependence relationship in complex networks; high DDE indicates complex degree dependence relationship; low DDE indicates the opposite one. The DDE can be seen as a quantitative statistical characteristic, which is meaningful for networked modeling and simulation.