Comparative metabolomic profiling of lantern and fat body tissues in the bioluminescent click beetle Pyrearinus micatus Costa, 1978

Authors:
Preprint
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Bioluminescence in click-beetles is sustained by specialized photogenic organs with high energetic and oxidative demands, yet their metabolomic organization remains largely unexplored. Here, we performed the first exploratory GC-MS-based metabolomic comparison of lantern and fat body tissues from the bioluminescent click beetle Pyrearinus micatus. Fifteen individuals were dissected to generate pooled tissue samples, and untargeted metabolomic profiles were analyzed using multivariate statistics, presence/absence analysis, UpSet plots, and pathway annotation. Exploratory principal component analysis indicated differences between the pooled lantern profile and the fat body samples, although these patterns should be interpreted cautiously given the absence of independent biological replicates for the lantern. The pooled lantern sample displayed a metabolomic profile characterized by metabolites associated with carbohydrate metabolism, glutathione metabolism, lipid turnover, and redox homeostasis, including glucose-6-phosphate, Cys-Gly, and unsaturated fatty acids. These metabolic features are consistent with the energetic and oxidative requirements of photogenic tissues. This study establishes an initial metabolomic framework for P. micatus, providing insights into tissue specialization and generating testable hypotheses for future replicated functional and evolutionary investigations of beetle bioluminescence.

This publication has 25 references indexed in Scilit: