Identification and evolution of two insulin receptor genes involved in Tribolium castaneum development and reproduction

• IRs duplicated at least twice among vertebrates, but only one duplication in insects.
• T.cas-ilr1,2 is highest expressed in late adult and late larval stage, respectively.
• T.cas-ilr1 is an essential gene for T.castaneum development and reproduction, but T.cas-ilr2 is less effect.
• RNAi of T.cas-ilrs upregulated pkc, foxo, jnk, cdc42, ikk and mekk expression but down-regulated erk.
• Two T.cas-ilrs functionally diverged although they share some identical regulators.

The insulin and insulin-like signaling (IIS) pathway exists in a wide range of organisms from mammals to invertebrates and regulates several vital physiological functions. A phylogenetic analysis have indicated that insulin receptors have been duplicated at least twice among vertebrates, whereas only one duplication occurred in insects before the differentiation of Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Hemiptera. Thus, we cloned two putative insulin receptor genes, T.cas-ir1 and T.cas-ir2, from T. castaneum and determined that T.cas-ir1 is most strongly expressed during the late adult and early pupal stages, whereas T.cas-ir2 is most strongly expressed during the late larval stage. We found that larval RNAi against T.cas-ir1 and T.cas-ir2 causes 100% and 42.0% insect death, respectively, and that parental RNAi against T.cas-ir1 and T.cas-ir2 leads to 100% and 33.3% reductions in beetle fecundity, respectively. The hatching rate of ds-ir2 insects was 66.2%. Moreover, RNAi against these two genes increased the expression of the pkc, foxo, jnk, cdc42, ikk, and mekk genes but decreased erk gene expression. Despite these similarities, these two genes act via distinct regulatory pathways. These results indicate that these two receptors have functionally diverged with respect to the development and reproduction of T. castaneum, even though they retain some common regulatory signaling pathways.