Bombyx mori Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase: Knockdown Inhibits Cell Growth and Proliferation via Inducing Cell Cycle Arrest

Abstract

Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), in the de novo pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway, is the fourth enzyme of pyrimidine synthesis and is used to oxidize dihydroorotate and hence to orotat. We cloned and characterized here the dhod of silkworms, Bombyx mori. The full-length cDNA sequence of dhod is 1339 bp, including an open reading frame (ORF) of 1173 bp that encoded a 390 amino acid protein. And two domains were involved in the Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase amino acid sequence of silkworms, Bombyx mori (BmDHODH), namely a DHO_dh domain and a transmembrane domain in N-termina. The silkworm dhod is expressed throughout development and in nine tissues. Moreover, knockdown of the silkworm dhod gene reduced cell growth and proliferation through G2/M phase cell cycle arrest. Similarly, DHODH inhibitor (leflunomide) also reduced cell growth and proliferation, with a significant decrease of cyclin B and cdk2. DHODH is the fourth enzyme of pyrimidine synthesis, so we also found that leflunomide can inhibit, at least in part, the endomitotic DNA replication in silk glands cells. These findings demonstrate that downregulation of BmDHODH inhibits cell growth and proliferation in silkworm cells, and the endomitotic DNA replication in silk gland cells.