If you are a Monarch butterfly, how do you fly from Canada to Mexico in one lifetime?
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Date
2013-11-05
Authors
Rumble, Mary E
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Abstract
Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are an amazing species that perform the feat of migrating over a thousand miles from Canada to Mexico in one lifetime. We hypothesized that in order to accomplish the migration, the butterflies may have a different flight muscle structure than other insect species. To test this hypothesis, we studied muscle function, and then picked three proteins to analyze through bioinformatics work and PCR/ gel electrophoresis: actin, mp20, and troponin T. We used both the Painted Lady and D. melanogaster as a standard of comparison for our work. We annotated all three of these protein sequences and then checked our findings in the lab. This work showed a recent duplication of the second actin protein in Lepidoptera and differential gene splicing of troponin T in the flight of D. plexippus. Both of these results show the species to have some significant differences in comparison to D. melanogaster.
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Keywords
Monarch Butterfly, Lepidoptera, Bioinformatics, Actin, TroponinT, Mp20, Danuas plexippus