Endocrine peptides and insect reproduction

In insects, peptide hormones regulate many physiological and developmental processes such as growth, moulting, metamorphosis, reproduction, diapause, feeding and metabolism. This review focuses on those involved in reproduction, in particular vitellogenesis and oogenesis, spermatogenesis, ovulation and pheromone production. Most of these peptides regulate the production of the true gonadotrophic hormones (as in the case of allatostatins, allatotropins and ovary ecdysteroidogenic hormones) or the production of pheromones (as in the case of pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptides). Other peptides seem related to reproductive processes, but it is not clear whether they play a true regulatory role. Cloning approaches have greatly facilitated the solution of structural aspects of peptide research; the major challenge now is to approach the functional aspects. © 2005 Balaban.The DGICYT (Spain) and the CIRIT (Catalonia), have provided sustained financial support for our research, the reproductive biology in cockroaches (projects AGL2002-01169 and 2001SGR 00345, respectively), which generated the results on the German cockroach included in this review.Peer Reviewe