Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Lepidopteran Larval Midgut During Prepupal Instar: Digestion or Self-Digestion?

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 3; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4161/auto.4908

1554-8635

Gianluca Tettamanti, Annalisa Grimaldi, Francesco Pennacchio, Magda de Eguileor,

Mosquito-borne diseases and control

Programmed cell death (PCD) is crucial in body restructuring during metamorphosis of holometabolous insects (those that have a pupal stage between the final larval and adult stages). Besides apoptosis, an increasing body of evidence indicates that in several insect species programmed autophagy also plays a key role in these developmental processes. We have recently characterized the midgut replacement process in Heliothis virescens larva, during the prepupal phase, responsible for the formation of a new pupal midgut. We found that the elimination of the old larval midgut epithelium is obtained by a combination of apoptotic and autophagic events. In particular, autophagic PCD completely digests decaying tissues, and provides nutrients that are rapidly absorbed by the newly formed epithelium, which is apparently functional at this early stage. The presence of both apoptosis and autophagy in the replacement of midgut cells in Lepidoptera offers the opportunity to investigate the functional peculiarities of these PCD modalities and if they share any molecular mechanism, which may account for possible cross-talk between them.Addendum to:Programmed Cell Death and Stem Cell Differentiation are Responsible for Midgut Replacement in Heliothis virescens During Prepupal InstarG. Tettamanti, A. Grimaldi, M. Casartelli, E. Ambrosetti, B. Ponti, T. Congiu, R. Ferrarese, M.L. Rivas-Pena, F. Pennacchio and M.D. EguileorCell Tissue Res 2007; In press