Prostaglandin synthetase inhibitors in the defensive secretion of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera:Tenebrionidae)

Chemical Composition and Taxonomic Significance of Defensive Secretions of Some Australian Tenebrionidae (Coleoptera)

“…The taxonomic representation in his study was primarily North American, but a substantial number of African species was included, particularly in the opatrine tribes. Subsequent work (Tschinkel 1975b;Gnanasunderam et al 1981Gnanasunderam et al , 1982Gnanasunderam et al , 1984Howard 1987;Howard et al 1986;Howard and Mueller 1987;Suzuki et af. 1975;Lloyd et al 1978) has extended the taxonomic representation and added a number of new compounds to the known chemical repertoire of Tenebrionidae.…”

Prostaglandin biosynthesis by fat body from larvae of the beetle Zophobas atratus

“…PG biosynthesis has been recorded in fat body preparations from several insect species, including cockroaches (Howard et al, 1986), tobacco hornworms (Stanley-Samuelson and Ogg, 1994), and true armyworms (Tunaz et al, 2001). Fat body is a central tissue in insect biology, and the PGs may act in many roles, including immune signaling (Morishima et al, 1997) and hormone signal transduction (Keeley et al, 1996;Ali and Steele, 1997a,b).…”

“…The insect preparations examined so far all seem to produce PGs at substantially lower rates than mammalian preparations. Howard et al (1986) used bovine seminal vesicles and cockroach, Periplaneta americana, fat body to assess the influence of defensive secretions on PG biosynthetic activity, and their results provide a fairly direct comparison of the two systems. In their assays, reactions using 2 mg of the bovine preparation yielded about 3 nmol/ h of PGE 2 while reactions with 10 mg of the cockroach fat body yielded about 126 pmol/h.…”

Biodiversity of Coleoptera

“…For comparison, the human genome has about 15 times more nucleotides and a haploid set of 23 chromosomes. T. castaneum was the first animal reported to produce inhibitors of prostaglandin synthetase, which were purified from the beetle's defensive secretions (Howard et al 1986). These substances are used widely in aspirin-like anti-inflammatory drugs.…”