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Juvenile hormone (JH) coordinates with 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) to regulate larval growth and molting in insects. However, little is known about how this cooperative control is achieved during larval stages. Here, we induced silkworm superlarvae by applying the JH analogue (JHA) methoprene and used a microarray approach to survey the mRNA expression changes in response to JHA in the silkworm integument. We found that JHA application significantly increased the expression levels of most genes involved in basic metabolic processes and protein processing and decreased the expression of genes associated with oxidative phosphorylation in the integument. Several key genes involved in the pathways of insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling (IIS) and 20E signaling were also upregulated after JHA application. Taken together, we suggest that JH may mediate the nutrient-dependent IIS pathway by regulating various metabolic pathways and further modulate 20E signaling.
Cheng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.