Makio Takeda

• PhD in Entomology, University of Missouri-Columbia
• Professor (Full) at Kobe University

Arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT) is a large family of enzymes that catalyze the acetyl-CoA-dependent acetylation of an amine or arylalkylamine. Some AANATs, such as serotonin N-acetyltransferase, in vertebrates are photosensitive and mediate circadian regulation of melatonin and are involved in important biological processes. We analyzed...

The photoperiodic system is concealed in the highly complex black-box, comprising four functional subunits: 1) a photo/thermo-sensitive input unit, 2) a photoperiodic clock based on a circadian system, 3) a condenser unit counting the number of inductive signals, and 4) a neuroendocrine switch that triggers a phenotypic shift. This review aims to s...

The red palm weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, is the most damaging and invasive pest of palm trees worldwide. This pest is native of Southeast Asia and Melanesia and has extended its invasion into the Middle East, Africa, Mediterranean region, Caribbean, Northern America and Australia. An explicit knowledge and understanding of RPW diversit...

Species of infraorder Gryllidea, or crickets, are useful invertebrate models for studying developmental biology and neuroscience. They have also attracted attention as alternative protein sources for human food and animal feed. Mitochondrial genomic information on related invertebrates, such as katydids, and locusts, has recently become available i...

Vitellogenins (Vgs) are yolk protein precursors that are regulated by juvenile hormone (JH) and/or 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) in insects. JH acts as the principal gonadotropin that stimulates vitellogenesis in hemimetabolous insects. In this study, we cloned and characterized the Periplaneta americana Vitellogenin 2 (Vg2) promoter. Multiple sites for...

Melatonin (MEL) orchestrates daily and seasonal rhythms (e.g., locomotion, sleep/wake cycles, and migration among other rhythms) in diverse organisms. We investigated effects of pharmacological doses (0.03–1 mM) of exogenous MEL intake in the cockroach, Periplaneta americana on locomotor activity. As per os MEL concentration increased, cockroach lo...

Voracious feeding, trans-continental migration and insecticide resistance make Spodoptera litura among the most difficult Asian agricultural pests to control. Larvae exhibit strong circadian behavior, feeding actively at night and hiding in soil during daytime. The daily pattern of larval metabolism was reversed, with higher transcription levels of...

The cricket Velarifictorus micado is widely distributed in East Asia and colonized the United States of America (the USA) in 1959. It has two life cycles: egg and nymph diapause. We aimed to investigate the biogeographic boundary between them and determine when and why V. micado diverged. Mitochondrial fragments including COI and CytB were used for...

The primary structure of the second transmembrane (M2) segment of resistant to dieldrin (RDL), an ionotropic γ‐aminobutyric acid receptor (GABAR) subunit, and the structure–function relationships in RDL are well conserved among insect species. An amino acid substitution at the 2′ position in the M2 segment (Ala to Ser or Gly) confers resistance to...

Although the regulation of vitellogenesis in insects has been mainly discussed in terms of ‘classical’ lipid hormones, juvenile hormone (JH), and 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E), recent data support the notion that this process must be adjusted in harmony with a nutritional input/reservoir and involvement of certain indoleamines and neuropeptides in regul...

Reproduction and wing patterns (shape and colouration) in Polygonia c-aureum L. (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) are regulated by both photoperiod and temperature experienced during the immature stages, which result in the development of summer or autumn forms. The critical day length for this seasonal change in form was 13.5L : 10.5D at 21°C and 13L : 1...

Juvenile hormones (JH) regulate wide-ranging physiological and developmental processes in insects. However, molecular mechanisms underlying JH signaling remain to be determined. Vitellogenin (Vg) is primarily an egg-yolk protein, but recently proposed to serve many functions in insects. In the female American cockroach (Periplaneta americana), vite...

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Oliv.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is a highly damaging pest of palm trees worldwide. The infestation is highly concealed in nature. Hence, a highly sensitive and reliable early detection technique needs to be applied in the field for identification and treatment of the infested date palms to curtail...

North America has distinct types of Hyphantria moths (Arctiidae) characterized by red (RD)- and black (BL)-headed larvae, of which the taxonomic status is unresolved. Genetic divergence of 26 populations, based on 710 bp of the mtCOI sequence, showed two phylogenetic lineages, which could not be connected in the haplotype network with 95% confidenc...

In temperate climates, the initiation and termination of diapause synchronize the stress-tolerant stage with the stressful season and reproduction with the non-stressful season in many insects. Synchronization is often regulated by photoperiodism. Voltinism and the ultimate size of adults are also important determinants for their lifecycle, and dif...

Rab proteins are small monomeric GTPases/GTP-binding proteins, which form the largest branch of the Ras superfamily. The different Rab GTPases are localized to the cytosolic face of specific intracellular membranes, where they function as regulators of distinct steps in membrane trafficking. RabX4 is an insect-specific Rab protein that has no close...

The small Rab GTPases are key regulators of membrane vesicle trafficking. Ovaries of Periplaneta americana (Linnaeus) (Blattodea: Blattidae) have small molecular weight GTP/ATP-binding proteins during early and late vitellogenic periods of oogenesis. However, the identification and characterization of the detected proteins have not been yet reporte...

Hyphantria cunea (Drury) has colonized many countries outside its native range of North America and has become a model species for studies of the colonization and subsequent adaptation of agricultural pests. Molecular genetic analyses can clarify the origin and subsequent adaptations to non-native habitats. Using the mitochondrial COI gene, we exam...

In eukaryotic cells, Rab guanosine triphosphate-ases serve as key regulators of membrane-trafficking events, such as exocytosis and endocytosis. Rab3, Rab6, and Rab27 control the regulatory secretory pathway of neuropeptides and neurotransmitters. The cDNAs of Rab3, Rab6, and Rab27 from B. mori were inserted into a plasmid, transformed into Escheri...

The ground cricket Dianemobius nigrofasciatus overwinters as an egg in Japan, being univoltine in Hokkaido and northern Honshu and bivoltine farther south. In Hokkaido, however, this cricket is heard singing in winter in several fumarolic fields covered with moss and grasses locally known as “bokke”. In such warm “islets” the adult density was high...

Immunohistochemical reactivity against short neuropeptide F (sNPF-ir) was detected in both the brain–subesophageal ganglion (Br-SOG) and midgut epithelial cells of the isopod, Armadillidium vulgare. More than 194 cell bodies showed immunohistochemical reactivity in the brain and SOG. A wide distribution of sNPF-ir occured in the optic lobe (OL; 82...

A state of the art proteomic methodology using Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization-Time of Flight (MALDI TOF) has been employed to characterize peptides modulated in the date palm stem subsequent to infestation with red palm weevil (RPW). Our analyses revealed 32 differentially expressed peptides associated with RPW infestation in date palm...

Immunohistochemical reactivities against short neuropeptide F (sNPF-ir) and crustacean cardioactive peptide (CCAP-ir) were detected in both the brain-subesophageal ganglion (Br-SOG) and midgut epithelial cells of the male American cockroach, Periplaneta americana. Four weeks of starvation increased the number of sNPF-ir cells and decreased the CCAP...

The evolution of N-acetyltransfeases (NATs) seems complex. Vertebrate arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (aaNAT) has been extensively studied since it leads to the synthesis of melatonin, a multifunctional neurohormone prevalent in photoreceptor cells, and is known as a chemical token of the night. Melatonin also serves as a scavenger for reactive...

Male crickets belonging to the genus Loxoblemmus Saussure (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) often exhibit exaggerated facial structures with characteristic projections. Whether these structures are stable within a single species is not certified. We collected Loxoblemmus angulatus Bey-Bienko and reared the second generation under 16:8, 14:10, and 12:12 light...

Differential proteomics is considered as one of the most powerful tools for evaluating relative expression of molecular moieties either in plants or animals. The present study focuses first on optimizing a rapid and sensitive protocol for the isolation of high quality protein to be used in two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) from date palm sa...

The fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea (Drury) is a pest insect distributed in North America, and was introduced to the Far East Asia and South-East Europe. In North America, Hyphantria cuneahas a sibling species (the black- and red-headed types) whose taxonomic status has not been settled. These types have overlapping distributions in the field in the...

Plants always exposed to a wide range of both biotic and abiotic stresses and protect themselves by developing different adaptive defense mechanisms. This study investigates differentially expressed proteins in date palm stem induced by red palm weevil (RPW) infestation using 2-D differential gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF/TOF technology. We ide...

The present study investigated the pharmacological properties of dopamine receptors that functioned in the termination of pupal diapause in the Chinese oak silkmoth, Antheraea pernyi (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae). Dopamine receptors are classified according to their structure and function into two subfamilies as D1- and D2-like receptors. D1-like rece...

Starvation, in particular amino acid deprivation, induces autophagy in trophocytes (adipocytes), the major component of the fat body cell types, in the larvae of Drosophila melanogaster. However, the fat body of cockroach has two additional cell types: urocytes depositing uric acid in urate vacuoles as a nitrogen resource and mycetocytes harboring...

Vitellogenins (Vg) genes code for the major egg yolk protein precursor in insects and many other oviparous species. In insects, the Vg gene is expressed extra-ovarially in the fat body in sex-, tissue- and stage-specific manners. During the reproductive phase, the Vg mRNA is expressed in large quantities, which is then translated, secreted into hem...

Since its discovery in 1923, the biology of photoperiodism remains a mystery in many ways. We sought the link connecting the circadian system to an endocrine switch, using Antheraea pernyi. PER-, CLK- and CYC-ir were co-expressed in two pairs of dorsolateral neurons of the protocerebrum, suggesting that these are the circadian neurons that also exp...

The present study investigated the functional involvement of melatonin and dopamine in photoperiodism to terminate pupal diapause in the Chinese oak silkmoth, Antheraea pernyi (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae). Diapause in this long-day (short-night) species is maintained during long nights and can be terminated by exposure to a short-night photoperiod. W...

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the major producers of fine quality dates and ranks second in global date production. This important fruit crop is under threat due to highly invasive pest, the red palm weevil (RPW) (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus). Failure in early detection of RPW infestation is the major obstacle in its successful management. To...

Rab guanosine triphosphatases in eukaryotic cells are key regulators of membrane-trafficking events, such as exocytosis and endocytosis. Rab7 regulates traffic from early to late endosomes and from late endosomes to vacuoles/lysosomes. The Rab7-interacting lysosomal protein (RILP) was extracted from the silkworm, Bombyx mori (B. mori), and expresse...

The release of prothoracicotropic hormone, PTTH, or its blockade is the major endocrine switch regulating the developmental channel either to metamorphosis or to pupal diapause in the Chinese silk moth, Antheraea pernyi. We have cloned cDNAs encoding two types of serotonin receptors (5HTRA and B). 5HTRA-, and 5HTRB-like immunohistochemical reactivi...

Insects have both a circadian oscillatory system in peripheral tissues and a master clock in the central nervous system. However, the distribution of oscillator cells in the digestive system that is indispensable for nutrient intake has not been described in detail. This study immunohistochemically investigates cellular localization of the clock pr...

Ecdysteroid and sequiterpenoids juvenile hormones play a gonadotrophic role in the insect adult female vitellogenesis. The molecular basis of hormone action has been analyzed in great detail in flies and moths, but rarely in primitive insect orders. The primitive hemimetabolous insect Periplaneta americana was used, as a model, to isolate and chara...

In insects, trophocytes (adipocytes) are major cells of a storage organ, the fat body, from which stored glycogen and lipids are mobilized under starvation. However, cockroaches have 2 additional types of cell in the fat body: mycetocytes harboring an endosymbiont, Blattabacterium cuenoti, and urocytes depositing uric acid in urate vacuoles. These...

The life cycle of Lethocerus deyrollei (Vuillefroy) in Sayo-cho, Hyogo, Japan (35 ° 00' N, 134 ° 21' E), was studied in terms of flight, reproduction, and energy allocation as well as developmental zero (t0) and required heat units (K) for a generation. Counts of bugs attracted to electric lighting showed that L. deyrollei flew most frequently in J...

Different modes of climatic adaptation often lead to a split in reproductive cohesion and stimulate speciation between populations with different patterns of life cycle. We here examined egg development and photoperiodic adaptations in the nymphal development of Velarifictorus micado. We defined fast hatching populations as nymphal diapause and slo...

Non-diapausing spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) live on the undersurface of host leaves during summer, but diapausing mites overwinter in dark hibernacula. The light environments of these habitats would differ: visible radiation (VIS) but not ultraviolet radiation (UV) would reach the undersurface, but neither would enter dark hibernacula. Thus,...

Arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT; EC 2.3.1.87) catalyzes the N-acetylation of arylalkylamines. A cDNA encoding AANAT (ApAANAT) was cloned from Antheraea pernyi by PCR. The cDNA of 1966bp encodes a 261 amino acid protein. The amino acid sequence was found to have a high homology with Bombyx mori AANAT (BmNAT) but had very low homology with...

To investigate the photoreception that controls daily oscillations at the periphery in insects, we decapitated larvae of the silkworm Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae) by ligature, and observed rhythms in their peripheral tissues under several light conditions. We measured the mRNA expression of period (per) and timeless (tim), which are homolo...

On Oct 29, 2012 this sequence version replaced gi:409647960.

We cloned a cDNA encoding inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) from the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella. The deduced amino acid sequence showed that GmIAP contains two baculoviral IAP repeat (BIR) motifs, followed by a RING finger. The sequence comparison showed that GmIAP had high homology to lepidopteran IAPs and baculoviral IAPs, as well as dipter...

Rab proteins are small GTPases that play essential roles in vesicle transport. In this study, we examined the expression of Rab proteins and neuropeptide hormones in the brain of the silkworm, Bombyx mori. We produced antibodies against B. mori Rab1 and Rab14 in rabbits. Immunoblotting of samples of brain tissue from B. mori revealed a single band...

A 345 base pair cDNA encoding autophagy 8 (Atg8) of Galleria mellonella (GmAtg8) was cloned and sequenced. The deduced protein was estimated to be 118 amino acids long. Structural comparison and phylogenetic analysis showed that GmAtg8 belong to the Atg8 family of ubiquitin-like proteins. It is predicted to contain four β-sheets and four α-helices....

Bifenazate is a very selective acaricide that controls the spider mite, Tetranychus urticae. Bifenazate is the first example of a carbazate acaricide. Its mode of action remains unclear. Bifenazate and its active metabolite diazene induce paralysis in spider mites, suggesting that they may act on the nervous system. Here we have employed a homologu...

The cDNA encoding caspase-1, a main protease involved in apoptosis, was cloned and sequenced from the midgut of the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella. The open reading frame contains 879 nucleotides, encodes 293 amino acids, and was registered as Gmcaspase-1. The sequence comparison showed a high homology to lepidopteran caspase-1, human caspas...

Controlling the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), is a difficult task in rice (Oryza sativa L.) production. We focused on vitellogenins (Vg), which are the major yolk protein precursors of vitellins and play an important role in the reproduction of oviparous species, including insects. We studied the accum...

Immunohistochemical reactivity against short neuropeptide F (sNPF) was observed in the brain-corpus cardiacum and midgut paraneurons of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana. Four weeks of starvation increased the number of sNPF-ir cells in the midgut epithelium but the refeeding decreased the number in 3h. Dramatic rises in sNPF contents i...

We developed an improved space-saving system consisting of a netbook computer, microcontrollers, aluminum bottles with white light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and an incubator. In this system, light and dark periods, light intensity, and night-interrupting light conditions (i.e., period, intensity, and timing) can be independently controlled in each bo...

The giant water bug, Lethocerus deyrollei has become an endangered species in Japan. For conservation of this insect, hormonal regulation and the potential involvement of environmental pollutants as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in reproduction was investigated using vitellogenin (Vg), the major yolk protein precursor, gene as a biomarker....

In order to assess the natural photophase effective for controlling the pupal diapause of Hyphantria cunea , larvae were exposed in the long‐day season to “natural” conditions of light (through a window) for a period of 14 hr, 50 min. This photophase included different portions of either the dawn or dusk twilight period. Since the critical photopha...

Controlling the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), is a difficult task in rice (Oryza sativa L.) production. We focused on vitellogenins (Vg), which are the major yolk protein precursors of vitellins and play an important role in the reproduction of oviparous species, including insects. We studied the accum...

The fat body of female Periplaneta americana is the main site of vitellogenins (Vgs) synthesis. The Vgs are large molecules synthesized in the fat body and encoded by two different Vg genes (Vg1 and Vg2). The present study indicates that both Vg genes are represented in the genome by a single copy as revealed by Southern blot analysis. The Vg2 gene...

Pigment-dispersing hormone (PDH) is an 18 amino acid neuropeptide that induces pigment migration in Decapoda and serves as a circadian neurotransmitter in the locomotor activity rhythm in Drosophila. In this study, a cDNA encoding PDH was cloned from adult brains of the pill bug, Armadillidium vulgare (Av). The cDNA comprising 529 bp encodes a pept...

The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, is a serious pest of rice crops throughout Asia and exhibits wing dimorphism, with brachypterous adults having reduced wings and macropterous adults possessing fully developed wings. To understand the reproductive strategies in two wing-morphs of this insect, the transcript encoding the major yolk protein...

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT)- and two putative serotonin receptors, 5-HT1A- and 5-HT1B-like, immunohistochemical reactivities were investigated in the cephalic ganglia of two ground crickets, Dianemobius nigrofasciatus and Allonemobius allardi. 5-HT-ir was strongly expressed in the central body, accessory medulla region of the optic lobe,...

Small GTPases of the Rab family are key regulators of membrane trafficking. We produced antibodies against the Rab7 protein of Bombyx mori (BRab7) in rabbits, and against the Rab11 protein of B. mori (BRab11) in mice. The antibodies recognized BRab7 and BRab11 proteins, but did not recognize other Rab proteins. Immunoblotting of samples from brain...

Biotypes cause a serious problem in controlling brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens Stål (Homoptera: Delphacidae). We characterized four BPH strains, which were collected in different localities in Japan and maintained by random mating within each strain for different periods. The virulence of the BPH strains was evaluated based on their po...

Small GTPases of the Rab family act as essential regulators of vesicle transport pathways. Five Rab cDNA clones (BRab1, 7, 8, 11 and 14) from Bombyx mori were expressed in Escherichia coli as a thioredxin or glutathione sulfotransferase fusion protein. After purification, the fusion protein was tested for phosphorylation using protein kinase C (PKC...

It has long been known that γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) participates in a bypass of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle in plants and bacteria. In a single1950 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Awapara et al., Roberts and Frankel, and Udenfriend independently reported the presence of a large quantity – approximately 1 mg/g tissue – of GAB...

Female two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae are grown under different photoperiods and the photoperiodic regulation of diapause is examined. The photoperiodic response curve for diapause induction was of the long day–short day type, with critical day lengths (CDLs) of 2 and 12.5 h; diapause was induced between these CDLs. The preimaginal per...

The effects of climate change on the northern limit of the trivoltine area were clarified in the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea (Drury) (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae). The Takaoka and Kanazawa populations used in the present study occur in locations to the north of Fukui (36.07 degrees N), where H. cunea has recently shifted from a bivoltine to a predomi...

A cDNA that encodes a lipophorin receptor (LpR) with a predicted structure similar to that of the low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) gene superfamily was cloned from ovaries of the cockroach, Leucophaea maderae (Lem) and characterized. This is the first LpR sequenced from the order Dictyoptera. The cDNA has a length of 3362 bp coding for an 88...

The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae was exposed to UV-C (250 nm), UV-B (300 nm), and UV-A (350 nm). In non-diapausing females, the median effective doses for 50% mortality plus escape incidence (ED(50)) were 21 (UV-C) and 104 kJm(-2) (UV-B); those for 50% oviposition rate in continuous darkness-treated mites were 6.2 (UV-C) and 41 kJm(...

It has been shown that in orthopteran insects each of the optic lobes (OLs) contains a circadian pacemaker controlling locomotor activity and that the pars intercerebralis (PI) modifies the activity level. However, the present study showed Period protein-like immunoreactivity (PER-ir) in the PI and dorsolateral protocerebrum (DL) as well as in the...

Insect vitellogenin and lipophorin receptors (VgRs/LpRs) belong to the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) gene superfamily and play a critical role in oocyte development by mediating endocytosis of the major yolk protein precursors Vg and Lp, respectively. Precursor Vg and Lp are synthesized, in the majority of insects, extraovarially in the f...

The effects of starvation on cell death in the midgut of Periplaneta americana were studied histochemically and ultrastructurally. TUNEL assays showed that cell death began to increase in the columnar cells and nidi, the nests of stem cells and newborn cells from 2 weeks of starvation. A significant increase in cell death occurred in the nidi after...

Small GTPases of the Rab family act as essential regulators of vesicle transport pathways, including the exocytosis of neurohormones. These processes are not well-understood in insects. To address the physiological function of Rab proteins and their phosphorylation in insect neurosecretion, Rab8-like, prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH)-like, and pro...

Arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT), constituting a large family of enzymes, catalyzes the transacetylation from acetyl-CoA to monoamine substrates, although homology among species is not very high. AANAT in vertebrates is photosensitive and mediates circadian regulation. Here, we analyzed AANAT of the cricket, Dianemobius nigrofasciatus. Th...