About
71
Publications
6,706
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
620
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
November 2019 - present

Position
- Professor
Description
- I am very interested in insect pigmentation and cuticular proteins. We used mosquito and silkworm as the model materials to explore the functions of key components in insect cuticle, and the effects of interaction between major components of cuticle on insect adaptive traits.
Publications
Publications (71)
Coloration is one of the most variable characters in animals and provides rich material for studying the developmental genetic basis of pigment patterns. In the silkworm, more than 100 gene mutation systems are related to aberrant color patterns. The melanism (mln) is a rare body color mutant that exhibits an easily distinguishable phenotype in bot...
Cuticular proteins (CPs) are crucial components of the insect cuticle. Although numerous genes encoding cuticular proteins have been identified in known insect genomes to date, their functions in maintaining insect body shape and adaptability remain largely unknown. In the current study, positional cloning led to the identification of a gene encodi...
Melanin and cuticular proteins are vital cuticle components in insects. Cuticular defects caused by mutations in cuticular protein-encoding genes can obstruct melanin deposition. The effects of changes in melanin on the expression of cuticular protein-encoding genes, the cuticular and morphological traits, and the origins of these effects are unkno...
The delivery of exogenous nucleic acids to eggs or non-embryonic individuals by microinjection is a vital reverse genetics technique used to determine gene function in mosquitoes. However, DNA delivery to eggs is complex and time-consuming, and conventional, non-embryonic-injection techniques may result in unobvious phenotypes caused by insufficien...
Background
Phenol oxidases (POs) catalyze the oxidation of dopa and dopamine to melanin, which is crucial for cuticle formation and innate immune maintenance in insects. Although, Laccase 2, a member of the PO family, has been reported to be a requirement for melanin-mediated cuticle tanning in the development stages of some insects, whether it par...
Genetic modification via gene editing has become a widely adopted and demonstrably effective method in functional gene research within entomology. However, the optimal efficiency and simplicity of delivering exogenous guide RNA clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-associated protein 9 complexes into target tissues are crucial f...
The use of insecticides, primarily pyrethroids, is a pivotal strategy for mosquito control globally. Bioallethrin, the first commercially available volatile pyrethroid, can elicit spatial (i.e., noncontact) repellency to mosquitoes through the coactivation of olfactory receptor neurons and sodium channels. However, the olfactory mechanism of the re...
Lepidoptera is one of the most speciose insect orders, causing enormous damage to agricultural and forest crops. Although genome editing has been achieved in a few Lepidoptera for insect controls, most techniques are still limited. Here, by injecting female pupae of the Lepidoptera model species, Bombyx mori, gene editing was established using the...
CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing provides an effective method for deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying mosquito development and mosquito-borne disease transmission, as well as for exploring genetic control strategies. However, delivering the Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complex by embryo injection to produce genetic modifications is challengi...
Female adult anautogenous mosquitoes rely heavily on diverse chemical stimuli to locate and discriminate hosts for feeding through their olfactory system. Odorant binding proteins are believed to be the first proteins to interact with semiochemicals in the olfactory sensory system, but their functions in host seeking have not been extensively explo...
Female adult anautogenous mosquitoes rely heavily on diverse chemical stimuli to locate and discriminate hosts for feeding through their olfactory system. Odorant binding proteins are believed to be the first proteins to interact with semiochemicals in the olfactory sensory system, but their functions in host seeking have not been extensively explo...
Spatial or temporal specific gene knockout system is a valuable tool for studying the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental processes. The integument is essential for insect fitness and survival, but tools for dissecting function of genes in this tissue are lacking. In this study, we firstly identified an epidermis specifically expressed ge...
Gene drive refers to the phenomenon that specific genes or genetic elements are passed from parent to offspring in the form of super-Mendelian inheritance. In recent years, based on the genetic characteristics of gene drive and the theoretical basis of their molecular mechanisms, and supported by CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system, gene-driven genetic...
BACKGROUND
Glutathione S‐transferases (GSTs), a multifunctional protein family, are involved in insecticide resistance. However, a systematic analysis of GSTs in Anopheles sinensis, an important vector for malaria transmission, is lacking. In this study, we investigated the diversity and characteristics of GST genes, and analyzed their expression p...
BACKGROUND
Anopheles sinensis is the most widely distributed mosquito species and is the main transmitter of Plasmodium vivax malaria in China. Most previous research has focused on the mechanistic understanding of biological processes in An. sinensis and novel ways of interrupting malaria transmission. However, the development of functional genomi...
Background
The olfactory system plays a crucial role in regulating insect behaviors. The detection of odorants is mainly mediated by various odorant receptors (ORs) that are expressed in the dendrites of olfactory neurons of chemosensilla. Anophelessinensis is a major malaria vector in Eastern Asia and its genome has recently been successfully sequ...
Insect colors and color patterns have fascinated biologists for centuries. While extensive research has focused on the adult colors of Drosophila and butterflies, our understanding of how colors are generated and diversified in embryonic and larval stages remains limited, especially, the genetics behind the protective coloration of the immobile emb...
Anopheles sinensis is the most widely distributed species which mainly transmit the Plasmodium vivax malaria in China. Transgenic techniques have been successfully established in many other mosquitoes, but not previously reported in An. sinensis. In this study, the piggyBac transposable element vector pBac[3xP3‐EGFP afm] and the piggyBac helper pla...
Background
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are molecular chaperones that are involved in many normal cellular processes and various kinds of environmental stress. There is still no report regarding the diversity and phylogenetics research of HSP superfamily of genes at whole genome level in insects, and the HSP gene association with pyrethroid resistanc...
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inborn error of metabolism caused by mutations in the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene or by defects in the tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) synthesis pathway. Here, by positional cloning, we report that the 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS) gene, encoding a key enzyme of BH4 biosynthesis, is responsible for the a...
Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) exist in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic genomes and are the most popular genetic markers, but the SSRs of mosquito genomes are still not well understood. In this study, we identified and analyzed the SSRs in 23 mosquito species using Drosophila melanogaster as reference at the whole‐genome level. The results show tha...
Body shape is one of the most prominent and basic characteristics of any organism. In insects, abundant variations in body shape can be observed both within and amongst species. However, the molecular mechanism underlying body shape fine-tuning is very complex and has been largely unknown until now. In the silkworm Bombyx mori, the tubby (tub) muta...
Melanin and cuticular proteins are important cuticle components in insect. The cuticle defects caused by the loss function of cuticular protein-encoding genes could hinder melanin deposition. However, the effects of melanin variation on cuticular protein-encoding genes and the corresponding morphological traits associated with these genes remain la...
Body shape and color patterns of insect larvae are fundamental traits for survival. Typically, transcription factors or members of signaling pathways...
The genetic basis of body shape and coloration patterns on caterpillars is often assumed to be regulated separately, but it is possible that common molecules affect both types of trait simultaneous...
Melanin and cuticular proteins are important cuticle components in insect. Cuticle defects caused by mutations in cuticular protein-encoding genes can hinder melanin deposition. However, the effects of melanin variation on cuticular protein-encoding genes and the corresponding morphological traits associated with these genes are remain largely unkn...
Thirteen cuticular proteins (CPs) families have been recognized in arthropods. In this study, 250 Anopheles sinensis CP genes were identified and named based on genome and transcriptome sequences. They were classified into 10 families based on motifs and phylogenetic analyses. In 11 other insect species, 9 had CP numbers > 150 while Apis mellifera...
Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), the initial enzyme in the melanin pathway, catalyzes tyrosine conversion into Dopa. Although expression and regulation of TH have been shown to affect cuticle pigmentation in insects, no direct functional studies to date have focused on the specific physiological processes involving the enzyme during mosquito development....
Anopheles sinensis is a major malaria vector. Insect Odorant-Binding Proteins (OBPs) may function in the reception of odorants in the olfactory system. The classification and characterization of the An. sinensis OBP genes have not been systematically studied. In this study, 64 putative OBP genes were identified in whole-genome level of An. sinensis...
The pigmentation pattern of Lepidoptera varies greatly in different development stages. To date, the effects of key genes in the melanin metabolism pathway on larval and adult body color are distinct, yet the effects on pupal pigmentation remains unclear. In the silkworm, Bombyx mori, the black pupa (bp) mutant is only specifically melanized at the...
Chunlai Li W Zuo Xiaoling Tong- [...]
C Lu
The silkworm, Bombyx mori, is an economically important insect that was domesticated more than 5000 years ago. Its major economic traits focused on by breeders are quantitative traits, and an accurate and efficient QTL mapping method is necessary to explore their genetic architecture. However, current widely used QTL mapping models are not well sui...
Background
Anopheles sinensis is the major malaria vector in China and Southeast Asia. Vector control is one of the most effective measures to prevent malaria transmission. However, there is little transcriptome information available for the malaria vector. To better understand the biological basis of malaria transmission and to develop novel and e...
##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##
##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##
Catecholamine metabolism plays an important role in the determination of insect body color and cuticle sclerotization. To date, limited research has focused on these processes in silkworm. In the current study, we analyzed the interactions between catecholamines and melanin genes and their effects on the pigmentation patterns and physical propertie...
RNAi of Bm-iAANAT gene. (A). Phenotype of RNAi individuals. a and b are phenotype of female moth and male moth, respectively. Scale bar: 1 cm. (B) Statistics of RNAi. (C) Detection of Bm-iAANAT expression levels. (Student's t-test. n = 3. **p<0.01, The data show the mean±S.D.). Four siRNA fragments were designed and synthesized by Guangzhou RiboBio...
Schematic diagram of melanin metabolism pathway in silkworm and corresponding enzyme mutant. PO, phenol oxidase; YELLOW, major royal jelly protein; ADC, Aspartate decarboxylase, DDC, dopa decarboxylase; EBONY, N-β-alanyl dopamine synthetase; TH, tyrosine hydroxylase. TAN, N-β-alanyl dopamine hydrolysis enzyme. The pigment precursors are shown in bl...
Phenotype analysis of Dazao-mln pupae after dopamine injection. A is P3 pupae after injected with dopamine at P2 (the degree of melanization become greater as time goes on); B is P5 pupae after injected with dopamine at P4 (the degree of melanization become greater as time goes on). D: dorsal view. V: ventral view. Scale bar: 1 cm.
(EPS)
Relative Expression levels of melanin genes in Dazao-mln after injection of NBAD and NADA at P6 (P7 pupae were used for investigation). n = 3. Student's t test.* represents p<0.05, **represents p<0.01. A: Differences in ebony expression between individuals injected with NBAD and individuals injected with HCl as control. B: Differences in Bm-iAANAT...
Phenotype of genitalia between Dazao-mln and wild-type. A: female genitalia. B: male genitalia. Scale bar: 0.5 cm.
(EPS)
Phenotype of thoracic legs and anal plate in wild-type and mln mutant just after the fourth molt. Scale bar: 2 mm.
(EPS)
HPLC analysis of standard samples of four kinds of catecholamines. Arrows indicate the peaks of four standard samples. Peaks in the box are peaks of the content of the solution that used to dissolve samples.
(EPS)
Investigation of relative expression levels of corresponding melanin genes in anterior wings between Dazao-mln and wild-type. n = 3. student's t test. **represents p<0.01.
(EPS)
Scanning electron microscopy analysis of cross-section of dorsal plates from wild-type, Dazao-mln, Dazao-mln injected with NBAD and Dazao-mln injected with NADA. A and B are dorsal plates of wild-type and Dazao-mln, respectively. C and D are dorsal plates of Dazao-mln injected with NBAD and Dazao-mln injected with NADA, respectively. Scale bar: 5 m...
The primers for Quantitative RT-PCR and the template DNA sequences of siRNA.
(XLS)
Questions
Questions (2)
Hi
Does anybody knows the larva morphological characteristics of Eunica eburnea?
Thanks!
I want to construct a transient expression vector base on AcMNPV Baculovirus expression system. Then injected it into the mosquito (Anopheles sinensis) . I am not sure whether AcMNPV can infect the mosquito. I seem to have seen some relevant reports, but not sure! Does anybody can tell me? Thanks!