Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF STORED PRODUCTS RESEARCH, cilt.115, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Galleria mellonella, the bigger wax moth, plagues beekeeping. It is also a good model organism in host-pathogen studies and can digest polymers, making it an attractive biotechnology contender. In 2018, the G. mellonella genome was sequenced, allowing for additional proteomics-based study on this species' complex and dynamic biochemical processes. In this study, we characterized the effects of larval development on the midgut proteome by grouping the larvae based on their body weight, which was determined to correspond to the I, II, III, and IV instar stages. Proteins were isolated from dissected midguts using the TCA-acetone method and separated by 2DPAGE (Two-Dimensional Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis). The resulting gels were imaged and visually analyzed to identify stage-specific protein spots. These spots were excised, digested into peptides with trypsin enzyme, and prepared for LC-MS/MS (Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry) analysis. A total of 136 distinct proteins were successfully identified from these analyses. Subsequent bioinformatics analysis showed that the majority of these proteins were localized to the cytoplasm and mitochondria. This study demonstrates that the midgut proteome of G. mellonella larvae undergoes significant dynamic changes in a stagespecific manner to meet the increasing metabolic and cellular remodeling demands of growth and metamorphosis. This conclusion is supported by the ontological analysis, which emphasizes the critical functions of these proteins in structural and metabolic processes. Our findings provide proteomic information on insect developmental biology and metabolism and lay the groundwork for understanding this insect's amazing flexibility. Biotechnological applications and pest management plans benefit from these findings.