Argentine researchers from the Leloir Institute and the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) discovered that the golden brown spots of the world's biggest fruit and vegetable pest - the Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata) - unexpectedly generate when there are no cells in their wings.
"Our finding of basic physiology does not have a direct application for the control of this pest, but the information could eventually be useful for the factories that generate millions of sterile male flies (in Argentina and other countries) to displace the fertile and decrease its population," said the director of the study, Dr. Luis Alberto Quesada Allue, the head of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Development Laboratory of the Leloir Institute Foundation (FIL) and Conicet researcher.
The vibration of these flies' wings and their spots are a variable that contributes to their mating.
"After the metamorphosis, the wing cells of the young adult insects die and undergo a hardening process (sclerotization) that makes them apt to fly," states the research published in the international Journal of Insect Physiology.
This transformation takes place, not only on the wings, but also on the whole body of the insects, giving rise to a hard exoskeleton or shell called cuticle. "To our surprise, we discovered that a protein that enables the formation of the golden brown color of the wings - called NBAD synthetase - remains active in the cuticle even after the cells that gave rise to it disappear," stated Quesada Allue, who is also a Full-time Consultant professor at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UBA and titular member of the National Academy of Sciences of Buenos Aires.
"This is the first time that a process of brown coloring in insects without cell involvement has been described. Biologically, it is unusual," said Perez.
Source: infobae.com