Mosquitoes Possess Specialized Cuticular Proteins That Are Evolutionarily Related to the Elastic Protein Resilin

Resilin is an elastic protein that is vital to insects' vigorous movement. Canonical resilin proteins possess the R&R Consensus, a chitin-binding domain conserved in a family of cuticular proteins, and highly repetitive sequences conferring elastic properties. In the malaria vector mosquito...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insects (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-12, Vol.14 (12), p.941
Main Authors: Ohkubo, Sakura, Shintaku, Tohki, Mine, Shotaro, Yamamoto, Daisuke S, Togawa, Toru
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino acids
Aquatic insects
Binding
Body parts
Chitin
Cloning
Culicidae
Cuticles
cuticular protein
Elastic properties
Epicuticle
Evolution
Homology
Insects
Jumping
Malaria
Mechanical properties
mosquito
Mosquitoes
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Plasmids
Proteins
resilin
resilin-related
Vector-borne diseases
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Summary:Resilin is an elastic protein that is vital to insects' vigorous movement. Canonical resilin proteins possess the R&R Consensus, a chitin-binding domain conserved in a family of cuticular proteins, and highly repetitive sequences conferring elastic properties. In the malaria vector mosquito, , however, a cuticular protein has been found that has an R&R Consensus resembling that of resilin but lacks the repetitive sequences (here, we call it resilin-related or resilin-r). The relationship between resilin-r and resilin was unclear. It was also unknown whether resilin-r is conserved in mosquitoes. In this paper, phylogenetic and structural analyses were performed to reveal the relationship of resilin homologous proteins from holometabolous insects. Their chitin-binding abilities were also assessed. A resilin-r was found in each mosquito species, and these proteins constitute a clade with resilin from other insects based on the R&R Consensus sequences, indicating an evolutionary relationship between resilin-r and resilin. The resilin-r showed chitin-binding activity as same as resilin, but had distinct structural features from resilin, suggesting that it plays specialized roles in the mosquito cuticle. Another resilin-like protein was found to exist in each holometabolous insect that possesses resilin-like repetitive sequences but lacks the R&R Consensus. These results suggest that similar evolutionary events occurred to create resilin-r and resilin-like proteins.
ISSN:2075-4450
2075-4450
DOI:10.3390/insects14120941