The angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, captopril disrupts the motility activation of sperm from the silkworm, Bombyx mori.
Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (also known as peptidyl dicarboxypeptidase A, ACE, and EC 3.4.15.1), which is found in a wide range of organisms, cleaves C-terminal dipeptides from relatively short oligopeptides. Mammalian ACE plays an important role in the regulation of blood pressure. However, the precise physiological functions of insect ACE homologs have not been understood. As part of our effort to elucidate new physiological roles of insect ACE, we herein report a soluble ACE protein in male reproductive secretions from the silkmoth, Bombyx mori. Seminal vesicle sperm are quiescent in vitro, but vigorous motility is activated by treatment with either a glandula (g.) prostatica homogenate or trypsin in vitro. When seminal vesicle sperm were pre-incubated with captopril, a strong and specific inhibitor of mammalian ACE, and then stimulated to initiate motility by the addition of the g. prostatica homogenate or trypsin, the overall level of acquired motility was reduced in an inhibitor-concentration-dependent manner. In the course of this project, we detected ACE-related carboxypeptidase activity that was inhibited by captopril in both the vesicular (v.) seminalis of the noncopulative male reproductive tract and in the spermatophore that forms in the female bursa copulatrix at the time of mating, just as in an earlier report on the tomato moth, Lacanobia oleracea, which belongs to a different lepidopteran species (Ekbote et al., 2003a). Two distinct genes encoding ACE-like proteins were identified by analysis of B. mori cDNA, and were named BmAcer and BmAcer2, respectively [the former was previously reported by Quan et al. (2001) and the latter was first isolated in this paper]. RT-qPCR and Western blot analyses indicated that the BmAcer2 was predominantly produced in v. seminalis and transferred to the spermatophore during copulation, while the BmAcer was not detected in the adult male reproductive organs. A recombinant protein of BmAcer2 (devoid of a signal peptide) that was expressed in Escherichia coli cells exhibited captopril-sensitive carboxypeptidase activities. Our findings show that the BmAcre2 gene encodes a secreted ACE protein included in the Bombyx seminal plasma. In particular, the silkworm ACE protein in the seminal fluid might be involved in the signaling pathway that leads to the activation and regulation of sperm motility.