Surviving the cold: molecular analyses of insect cryoprotective dehydration in the Arctic springtail Megaphorura arctica (Tullberg)

摘要

BackgroundInsects provide tractable models for enhancing our understanding of the physiological and cellular processes that enable survival at extreme low temperatures. They possess three main strategies to survive the cold: freeze tolerance, freeze avoidance or cryoprotective dehydration, of which the latter method is exploited by our model species, the Arctic springtail Megaphorura arctica, formerly Onychiurus arcticus (Tullberg 1876). The physiological mechanisms underlying cryoprotective dehydration have been well characterised in M. arctica and to date this process has been described in only a few other species: the Antarctic nematode Panagrolaimus davidi, an enchytraied worm, the larvae of the Antarctic midge Belgica antarctica and the cocoons of the earthworm Dendrobaena octaedra. There are no in-depth molecular studies on the underlying cold survival mechanisms in any species.