TITLE:
In the monarch butterfly the juvenile hormone effect upon immune response depends on the immune marker and is sex dependent
AUTHORS:
Guadalupe Villanueva, Humberto Lanz-Mendoza, Salvador Hernández-Martínez, Minerva Sánchez Zavaleta, Javier Manjarrez, José M. Contreras-Garduño, Jorge Contreras-Garduño
KEYWORDS:
Immune Response; Life History; Juvenile Hormone; Reproductive Diapause; Nitric Oxide
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Ecology,
Vol.3 No.1,
February
22,
2013
ABSTRACT: In insects, juvenile hormone (JH) decreases or has any effect upon the phenoloxidase (PO) activity, and favors or decreases the Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) expression. Although there is no information about the differential effect of such hormone, two possibilities are that it depends on (a) the immune marker recorded and (b) sexual differences. Here, three commonly used immune markers, Phenoloxidase (PO), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and lytic activity, were measured 3, 6 and 24 hours after administration of methoprene (JHa, an analog of juvenile hormone) in male and female monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). At 3 and 6 h post-JHa administration, the PO activity increased in females but it only increased at 3 h in males, whereas H2O2 levels increased only in females at 3 h. For the remaining times the JHa had a null effect on POand H2O2. On the other hand, the JHa had a null effect for lytic activity in both sexes at 3, 6 and 24 h. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a positive effect of a JHa onPOand H2O2 and suggests that this effect is sex dependent.