Comparative proteomic analysis reveals that juvenile hormone binding protein and adenylate kinase may be involved in the molting process of silkworm, Bombyx mori.

The molting is an essential part of the silkworm metamorphosis development. Although previous studies have demonstrated that molting in silkworm is associated with prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), molting hormone (MH), and juvenile hormone (JH), the changes of proteins and genes during silkworm molting, as well as the molecular mechanism about its generating and maintaining remains unclear. In this paper, the proteomic approaches were employed to investigate this issue. Totally, 35 different proteins were successfully identified through mass spectrometry and database searches, among which 42 % proteins were involved in cell structure and 16 % proteins belonged to the metabolism group. Meanwhile, vacuolar ATP synthase, juvenile hormone binding protein precursor and adenylate kinase isoenzyme were found to be down-regulated at early, mid-molt stages, which were further confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Taken together, our data suggests that juvenile hormone binding protein (JHBP) and adenylate kinase (AK) play a critical role in the process of silkworm molting, which may participate in the regulation of silkworm molting.