Species- specific peptide profiling of Indian butterflies
Student name: Ms Swastika Issar
Guide: Dr Ramakrishnan Sitaraman
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Deepa Agashe
Abstract: This report gives an account of the preliminary experiments conducted to find out the presence of
the peptide toxin Glacontryphan M in the Indian subspecies of Hebomoia glaucippe (the Great
Orange Tip butterfly). Another goal of the study was to qualitatively and quantitatively compare
bioactive peptides isolated and characterized from samples of various Indian butterfly species.
In order to explore the presence of Glacontryphan M in Hebomoia glaucippe (HG) in an
evolutionary context, bioinformatics approaches such as PSI- BLAST were employed. However,
the PSI-BLAST searches using the current database of annotated Lepidopteran non redundant
proteins refutes the presence of any proteins homologous to the conotoxin in HG.
Several peptides of interest were isolated from crude HG wing samples using Matrix-assisted
laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry.
SDS- PAGE (Sodium dodecyl sulphate- Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) enabled
comparative analysis of gross differences between wing and body samples of the following
butterfly species, along with HG: Cepora nerissa (CN,) Delias eucharis (DE), Tirumala
septentrionis (TS).
This study highlights the largely unexplored potential for discovery of novel proteins and
peptides from Lepidopterans and their roles in a variety of metabolic reactions as well as in
immunological & predatory defense.
Keyword(s): Indian butterflies, peptide profiles, chemical defence, mass spectrometry
