What is it about?
Jumping insects, such as locusts, use catapult-like structures in their back legs to achieve rapid accelerations. These structures utilize the leg joints, tendons, and the outer cuticle to store elastic energy and convert slow muscle contractions into spring-like movements that extend the legs suddenly. A highly elastic protein called resilin is a major component of these leg structures, but its role in the jumping process is unclear. To determine whether resilin is mainly involved in storing elastic energy or in protecting the leg from damage, Stephen M. Rogers, Darron A. Cullen and colleagues used RNA interference to reduce resilin levels in locusts. The authors compared jumping performance between groups of unaltered locusts and those with low resilin and found that a loss of resilin only slightly reduced the insects’ take-off velocity, but caused hind leg breakages in twenty-nine percent of the low-resilin locusts, compared to none in the unaltered locusts. According to the authors, the findings indicate that resilin’s main role in the jumping leg structure is to protect the brittle cuticle from damage during repeated use.
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Photo by Stefan Bütikofer on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The role of this rubbery protein in protecting the harder, energy-storing structures might now inspire the development of novel rubbers or composites, for use in mechanical structures where resilience is a critical factor.
Perspectives
This research is the first time that modern genetic approaches have been used to investigate jumping in locusts, which have been studied in the lab for many decades. It is therefore an exciting fusion of classical and modern biology, and should pave the way for future molecular-based studies of insect biomechanics.
Darron Cullen
University of Hull
Isn't it fascinating to see how nature harnesses biomacromolecules to create materials with exceptional structural and functional properties?
Prof. Dr. Jozef J.M. Vanden Broeck
Associatie KU Leuven
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: RNAi of the elastomeric protein resilin reduces jump velocity and resilience to damage in locusts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2415625121.
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