Corazonin in insects

Does corazonin signal nutritional stress in insects?

“…After the identification of [His 7 ]-corazonin as an important regulator in locust phase polymorphism (Tawfik et al, 1999), corazonin was isolated from the silkworm Bombyx mori and the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus (Hua et al, 2000). Using mass spectrometry it has been found in a large number of insect species (for review see Predel et al, 2007Predel et al, , 2008. Although corazonin is readily detected by mass spectrometry in corpora cardiaca and brain extracts (e. g. Predel et al, 2007Predel et al, , 2008Ons et al, 2009), it was not found in the tenebrionid beetles, Tribolium castaneum, Tribolium brevicornis or Tenebrio molitor Weaver and Audsley, 2008;Gäde et al, 2008), and the former species also lacks the genes encoding corazonin and its receptor Hauser et al, 2008).…”

“…Using mass spectrometry it has been found in a large number of insect species (for review see Predel et al, 2007Predel et al, , 2008. Although corazonin is readily detected by mass spectrometry in corpora cardiaca and brain extracts (e. g. Predel et al, 2007Predel et al, , 2008Ons et al, 2009), it was not found in the tenebrionid beetles, Tribolium castaneum, Tribolium brevicornis or Tenebrio molitor Weaver and Audsley, 2008;Gäde et al, 2008), and the former species also lacks the genes encoding corazonin and its receptor Hauser et al, 2008). It seems likely that this absence of corazonin is not limited to Tenebrionid beetles, as corazonin biological activity was absent from a total of thirteen different beetle species (Tanaka, 2000(Tanaka, , 2006, while corazonin immunoreactivity was undetectable by immunohistochemical methods in at least two coleopteran species (Roller et al, 2003;Veenstra, unpublished data).…”

“…There is no reason to doubt that the neuroendocrine cells projecting to the corpora cardiaca contain authentic corazonin; the peptide was initially isolated from the corpora cardiaca (Veenstra, 1989a), and it has been repeatedly identified by mass spectrometry in the corpora cardiaca from a large number of species (e. g. Predel et al, 2007). There is neither reason to doubt the presence of corazonin in the abdominal and thoracic interneurons; HPLC extracts of ventral nerve cords of the American cockroach show corazonin-like immunoreactivity to co-elute with synthetic corazonin (Veenstra and Davis, 1993), while in Drosophila the same neurons are also labeled with mRNA probes and in transgenic flies using the corazonin promotor to express Gal4 (Choi et al, 2005).…”

Characterization, expression, and evolutionary aspects of Corazonin neuropeptide and its receptor from the House Fly, Musca domestica (Diptera: Muscidae)

“…Since the discovery of the undecapeptide Corazonin (Crz) in the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, as a potent cardioactive peptide (Veenstra, 1989), homologous peptides have been identified from a variety of insects and crustaceans (Predel et al, 2007;reviewed in Veenstra, 2009 and references therein). Two major members of the Crz family are [Arg 7 ]-Crz and [His 7 ]-Crz, while other variants are identified in restricted groups of insects; [Thr 4 , His 7 ]-Crz in the Honey bee (Roller et al, 2006); [Gln 10 ]-Crz in the American crane fly; [His 4 , Gln 7 ]-Crz in the members of the Order Mantophasmatodea; [Tyr 3 , Gln 7 , Gln 10 ]-Crz in the bumble bee (Predel et al, 2007). Of surprise, multiple lines of evidence indicate the lack of Crz and its cognate receptors in several beetle species (Order Coleoptera) and aphid (Hauser et al, 2008;Huybrechts et al, 2010;Li et al, 2008;Roller et al, 2003;Weaver and Audsley, 2008), implying an interesting evolutionary history of this neuropeptide-encoding gene.…”

DINeR — A Database for Insect Neuropeptide Research

“…As a rapidly growing field in which more than 5800 papers (Google Scholar) have been published, insect neuropeptide endocrinology requires a comprehensive and standardised resource for managing neuropeptide information. Identification of insect neuropeptides has been facilitated by inexpensive next-generation sequencing, for example in the context of the i5k project (Poelchau et al, 2015); and sensitive mass-spectrometric peptidomic surveys (Audsley et al, 2015;Baggerman et al, 2002;Li et al, 2008;Predel et al, 2007) resulting in an explosion in available insect neuropeptide data. However, there is no dedicated online resource for insect neuroendocrinology.…”