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Insect chitinase and chitinase-like proteins

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Abstract

Insect chitinases belong to family 18 glycosylhydrolases that hydrolyze chitin by an endo-type of cleavage while retaining the anomeric β-(1→4) configuration of products. There are multiple genes encoding chitinases and chitinase-like proteins in all insect species studied using bioinformatics searches. These chitinases differ in size, domain organization, physical, chemical and enzymatic properties, and in patterns of their expression during development. There are also differences in tissue specificity of expression. Based on a phylogenetic analysis, insect chitinases and chitinase-like proteins have been classified into several different groups. Results of RNA interference experiments demonstrate that at least some of these chitinases belonging to different groups serve non-redundant functions and are essential for insect survival, molting or development. Chitinases have been utilized for biological control of insect pests on transgenic plants either alone or in combination with other insecticidal proteins. Specific chitinases may prove to be useful as biocontrol agents and/or as vaccines.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs. Karl J. Kramer, Hans Merzendorfer and Richard W. Beeman for their critical reading and editing of this manuscript. We are grateful to Professors Daizo Koga and Kun-Yan Zhu for sharing and allowing us to cite some of their unpublished data in this review. This work was supported by NSF grants IBN-0316963 and IOS-615818. This is contribution 10-021-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, 141 Chalmers Hall, Manhattan, KS, 66506-3702, USA

    Yasuyuki Arakane & Subbaratnam Muthukrishnan

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Correspondence to Subbaratnam Muthukrishnan.

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Arakane, Y., Muthukrishnan, S. Insect chitinase and chitinase-like proteins. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 67, 201–216 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0161-9

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