Identification of the Key Pathways and Genes Involved in the Wax Biosynthesis of the Chinese White Wax Scale Insect (Ericerus pela Chavannes) by Integrated Weighted Gene Coexpression Network Analysis

Abstract

The white wax secreted by the male insects of the Chinese white wax scale (CWWS) is a natural high-molecular-weight compound with important economic value. However, its regulatory mechanism of wax biosynthesis is still unclear. In this study, a weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to analyze transcriptome data of first- and second-instar females, early and late female adults, and first- and second-instar males. A total of 19 partitioned modules with different topological overlaps were obtained, and three modules were identified as highly significant for wax secretion (p < 0.05). A total of 30 hub genes were obtained through screening, among which elongation of very-long-chain fatty acids protein (ELOVL) and fatty acyl-CoA reductase (FAR) are important catalytic enzymes of fatty acid metabolism. Furthermore, their metabolic catalytic products are involved in the synthesis of wax biosynthesis. The results demonstrate that WGCNA can be used for insect transcriptome analysis and effectively screen out the key genes related to wax biosynthesis.

Proteome-metabolome profiling of wax gland complex reveals functional changes in honeybee, Apis mellifera L.

“…Oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid biosynthesis dominate the production of ATP, 45 which is essential for the process of wax secretion. 46 Beyond that, the latter process could generate maleyl coenzyme A, which is an essential precursor for the synthesis of long-chain fatty acids 47 in the material stocking of beeswax.

Figure 4 Enrichment analysis of specifically expressed proteins in NEB, WSB, and OAB (A) NEB-specific expressed protein gene ontology (GO) analysis.

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Candidate genes potentially involved in molting and body size reduction in the male of the horned gall aphid, Schlechtendalia chinensis

“…Four topological centricities including degree centrality (DC), closeness centrality (CC), between centrality (BC) and eigenvector centrality (EC) are used to measure the closeness degree of nodes to the center of the network. In our study, the weighted DC index was used to sort the nodes in the network and screen for hub genes ( Ding et al, 2022 ). Eleven of the identified hub genes were linked to autophagy and apoptosis.…”

“…The weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) is a powerful method to identify co-expressed groups of genes from large heterogeneous messenger RNA expression data sets ( Clarke et al, 2013 ). It has been successfully used for insect transcriptome analysis, to effectively mine genes of interest, and to predict gene functions ( Ding et al, 2022 ).…”

Transcriptome analysis unveils the mechanisms of lipid metabolism response to grayanotoxin I stress in Spodoptera litura

“…ELOVL fatty acid elongase is primarily located on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and promotes the synthesis of C18-26 fatty acids from the C16 chain. ELOVL fatty acid elongases widely exist in different insects, such as Bombyx mori , Locusta migratoria, and Ericerus pela Chavannes ( Zuo et al, 2018 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ; Ding et al, 2022 ). The very long chain fatty acids, including saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, are crucial sources of accumulated fat in the fat body of insects.…”