Success and failure in insect fertilization and reproduction - the role of the female accessory glands
Authors: Heifetz Yael , Bender Michael 
Published: March 2022

The research problem. Understanding of insect reproduction has been critical to the design of insect pest control strategies including disruptions of mate-finding, courtship and sperm transfer by male insects. It is well known that males transfer proteins to females during mating that profoundly affect female reproductive physiology, but little is known about the molecular basis of female mating response and no attempts have yet been made to interfere with female post-mating responses that directly bear on the efficacy of fertilization. The female reproductive tract provides a crucial environment for the events of fertilization yet thus far those events and the role of the female tract in influencing them are poorly understood. For this project, we have chosen to focus on the lower reproductive tract because it is the site of two processes critical to reproduction: sperm management (storage, maintenance, and release from storage) and fertilization. E,fforts during this project period centered on the elucidation of mating responses in the female lower reproductive tract The central goals of this project were: 1. To identify mating-responsive genes in the female lower reproductive tract using DNA microarray technology. 2. In parallel, to identify mating-responsive genes in these tissues using proteomic assays (2D gels and LC-MS/MS techniques). 3. To integrate proteomic and genomic analyses of reproductive tract gene expression to identify significant genes for functional analysis. Our main achievements were: 1. Identification of mating-responsive genes in the female lower reproductive tract. We identified 539 mating-responsive genes using genomic and proteomic approaches. This analysis revealed a shift from gene silencing to gene activation soon after mating and a peak in differential gene expression at 6 hours post-mating. In addition, comparison of the two datasets revealed an expression pattern consistent with the model that important reproductive proteins are pre-programmed for synthesis prior to mating. This work was published in Mack et al. (2006). Validation experiments using real-time PCR techniques suggest that microarray assays provide a conservativestimate of the true transcriptional activity in reproductive tissues. 2.lntegration of proteomics and genomics data sets. We compared the expression profiles from DNA microarray data with the proteins identified in our proteomic experiments. Although comparing the two data sets poses analyical challenges, it provides a more complete view of gene expression as well as insights into how specific genes may be regulated. This work was published in Mack et al. (2006). 3. Development of primary reproductive tract cell cultures. We developed primary cell cultures of dispersed reproductive tract cell types and determined conditions for organ culture of the entire reproductive tract. This work will allow us to rapidly screen mating-responsive genes for a variety of reproductive-tract specifi c functions. Scientific and agricultural significance. Together, these studies have defined the genetic response to mating in a part of the female reproductive tract that is critical for successful fertllization and have identified alarge set of mating-responsive genes. This work is the first to combine both genomic and proteomic approaches in determining female mating response in these tissues and has provided important insights into insect reproductive behavior.