Overview of the newly predicted S. gregaria neuropeptides.

This table shows an overview of the newly predicted S. gregaria neuropeptides (i.e. which had not been identified previously, neither at the protein nor at the nucleic acid level) and the sequence ID of the precursor encoding transcript. It needs to be emphasized that some of these peptides are predicted on the basis of possible cleavage sites within the precursor but do not show homology to any known peptide. Their presence and function(s) in vivo have not been demonstrated yet. In addition, the precursor sequences are derived from EST sequence information and a limited degree of sequencing errors cannot be fully excluded. Abbreviations: AST CC: allatostatin double C; Burs-β: bursicon β-subunit; DH: diuretic hormone; GPA: glycoprotein hormone α; HrTH: hypertrehalosemic hormone; NPF: neuropeptide F; TK: tachykinin (TK 2–4 had previously been demonstrated by means of mass spectrometry, but their complete amino acid sequence had so far not been completely determined [5]); PVK: periviscerokinin; PPDP: PVK precursor-derived peptide; NLP: neuropeptide-like peptide. The nomenclature of CCHa is based on the fact that this neuropeptide has two conserved cysteine residues and an amidated histidine residue. The nomenclature of Apis ITG is based on a pattern of three amino acid residues in the sequence.*: The amino acid residues printed in bold represent the truncated form of NPF, which had previously been demonstrated by means of mass-spectrometry [50].**: A possible cleavage site within the predicted peptide is printed in bold italics. Different cleavage forms of a certain peptide may occur in a tissue-dependent manner. For instance, TK-8 may occur as GNTKKAPVGFYGTRa or APVGFYGTRa; MT-3 may occur as SLRLRLPAAAWLAAGDVGNGKGDFTPRLa or LPAAAWLAAGDVGNGKGDFTPRLa or GDFTPRLa. For NPLP-8, different cleavage patterns might perhaps result in HIGALARLGWLPSFRAASARSGRSAGSRSa, LGWLPSFRAASARSGRSAGSRSa, AASARSGRSAGSRSa, HIGALARLGWLPSFRAASA, SGRSAGSRSa, HIGALARLGWLPSFRAASARSa or SAGSRSa.