Quantity does matter. Juvenile hormone and the onset of vitellogenesis in the German cockroach

We aimed to elucidate why cockroaches do not produce vitellogenin in immature stages, by studying the appearance of vitellogenin mRNA in larvae of Blattella germanica. Treatment of female larvae in any of the last three instars with 1 μg of juvenile hormone (JH) III induces vitellogenin gene transcription, which indicates that the fat body is competent to transcribe vitellogenin at least from the antepenultimate instar larvae. In untreated females, vitellogenin production starts on day 1 after the imaginal molt, when corpora allata begin to synthesize JH III at rates doubling the maximal of larval stages. This coincidence suggests that the female reaches the threshold of JH production necessary to induce vitellogenin synthesis on day 1 of adult life. These data lead to postulate that larvae do not synthesize vitellogenin simply because they do not produce enough JH, not because their fat body is incompetent. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Spain (projects AGL2002-01169, BMC2002-03222 and BOS2002-03359); and the Generalitat de Catalunya (2001 SGR 003245) is gratefully acknowledged.Peer Reviewe