Archives of Insect Biochemistry and Physiology 41:i–iv (1999)

© 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

XIIIth Ecdysone Workshop

The XIIIth Ecdysone Workshop was held inJena, July 27–31, 1998. The program of the 5-day meeting for 140 participants from 21 coun-tries covered the traditional Karlson-Lecture,given by Akinori Suzuki (Tokyo), seven overviewlectures, two round table discussions, and 93 shortlectures and posters.

The local organizing committee consisted ofthe members of the Research Group of the Säch-sische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzigin Jena: Heiner Birkenbeil, Gustav-Adolf Böhm,Sabine Kaltofen, Giesela Radtke, Klaus Richter,and Dieter Wicher. The arrangement of the sci-entific program was supported by the membersof the international program committee: X. Bellés,J.-P. Delbecque, L. Dinan, P. Karlson, J. Koolman,R. Lafont, J.-A. Lepesant, M. Lezzi, A.S. Raikhel,H.H. Rees, K. Richter, L. Riddiford, F. Sehnal, K.Slàma, K.-D. Spindler, C.G.H. Steel, and V.V.Volodin.

Over a period of 23 years, 13 workshops havebeen aimed exclusively at one substance: ecdys-one and related steroids (ecdysteroids). This isa remarkable phenomenon. The scientific focusof the Ecdysone Workshops is embedded in thefascinating processes of the postembryonic de-velopment and metamorphosis of arthropods.Ecdysteroids constitute by far the largest groupof steroid hormones. The number of knownecdysteroids in animals as well as in plants hasincreased to over 100. At the same time, ourknowledge of the biological significance of allthese substances and, in particular, of the sig-nificance of the parallelism of their existence inanimals and plants is still relatively small. Sci-entific interest and research activities in the lastfew years have extended far beyond the alreadywell-documented effects of ecdysteroids in arthro-pods, i.e., in insects, spiders, crustaceans, andother invertebrates (Fig. 1). Therefore, in theXIIIth Ecdysone Workshop scientists from the

fields of plant biochemistry, plant molecular biol-ogy and from medicine have for the first time beenamong the participants. It is a major goal ofecdysteroid research to extend this basic researchto encompass its application in insect pest con-trol and other applied aspects.

In the mid-1950s, ecdysone was isolated byPeter Karlson. It was a particular pleasure thatPeter Karlson could participate in the XIIIthEcdysone Workshop in Jena and report about theearly phase of ecdysone research. Ten years laterin the mid-1960s, the structure of ecdysone waselucidated. The formulation by Karlson (1961) ofthe theory of the mode of action of steroid hor-mones was based on the observation of puff in-duction in giant salivary gland chromosomes ofChironomus tentans with ecdysone by Clever andKarlson (1960). This was a milestone in the fieldsof endocrinology and developmental biology andopened the way to molecular endocrinology. Theecdysteroid receptor was first demonstrated inDrosophila tissue culture cells by Maroy et al.(1978). Chromosomal response elements involvedin ecdysteroid regulated gene expression werefirst described in 1986 by Riddihough and Pel-ham. Further elucidation of the ecdysteroid re-ceptor started with the discovery of ultraspiracleas a component of the receptor by several groups(Henrich et al., 1990; Oro et al., 1990; Shea et al.,1990). Since then, advances in molecular genetictechnologies have revolutionized the experimentalapproach toward understanding ecdysteroid actionat the molecular level and induced a continuousincrease in molecular biological investigations inecdysone research (Fig. 2).

Ecdysone Workshops started as a meetingon invertebrate hormones in Lille, which waslater declared to be the first Ecdysone Workshop.Stimulated by this meeting, one year later DavidWhitehead organized the second Workshop inLondon, explicitely dedicated to ecdysone (Käuser,

ii Preface

Fig. 2. Development of the main four branches of ecdysteroid research as represented in the last 11 Ecdysone Workshops

1988). After about 10 years of Ecdysone Work-shop tradition, a monograph about ecdysone wasedited by Jan Koolman (1989) and published byGeorg Thieme in Stuttgart.

The laboratories involved in ecdysteroid re-search are scattered all over the world (Fig. 3).Despite working to solve the same problems, themethods used differed enormously. The effortsof insect physiologists, chemists, biochemists, ap-plied entomologists, plant physiologists, and mo-lecular biologists contribute to the progress andbroadening of the field. It is for this reason thatEcdysone Workshops are such an important in-stitution, providing the opportunity to facilitateand preserve the exchange of ideas, co-operation,and friendships. The scientists engaged in ecdy-steroid research feel as a “Ecdysionist Family”with a nearly constant number of members par-ticipating in the last 6 workshops (Fig. 4).

The scientific impressions left behind by theEcdysone Workshops up until now cannot beseparted from the impressions made by the re-spective host towns, encompassing, of course, thesurrounding countryside and cultural specialities.

Fig. 1. The most commonly usedresearch objects in ecdysteroid re-search (1977–1998).

Preface iii

no other than the great poet, statesman, and sci-entist Johann Wolfgang Goethe carried out re-search on the development of the GooseberryMoth (Abraxas grossulariata) and the EuphorbiaSphinx (Deilephila euphorbiae), and among otherthings described in detail the eclosion behaviour.At the turn of the century, the Jena botanist ErnstStahl conducted research in defensive substancesin plants against pests as insects and molluscs, atheme that was given particular attention in thecourse of the present workshop. In the 1930s, theJena zoologist Otto Pflugfelder was working onthe problem of molting in insects, examining inparticular the role of corpora allata. The latestin this line of scientists was Manfred Gersch, whois regarded as one of the pioneers of research intoneurosecretion. In the mid-1960s, within theframework of neurosecretion research, he beganwork at the Zoological Institute in Jena on PTTH,which at that time was still called the ActivationHormone or Brain Hormone. He was also the firstto demonstrate insect molting without moltingglands (Gersch, 1978).

The contributions to this workshop, includedin this issue of the Archives of Insect Biochemis-try and Physiology, represent the diversity of theworkshop topics. As the guest editor I wish to ex-press my thanks to the Executive Editors A.Krishna Kumaran and H. Hagedorn and to theirEditorial Assistants, as well as to all the refereesfor their support in reviewing the manuscripts.

As chosen by the participants of the work-shop in Jena, Rapperswil in Switzerland will bethe meeting site for the XIVth Ecdysone Work-shop in the year 2000.

Klaus RichterOrganizing Committee of the XIIIthEcdysone WorkshopGuest Editor

LITERATURE CITED

Clever U, Karlson P. 1960. Induktion von Puff-Veränder-ungen in den Speicheldrüsenchromosomen von Chiro-nomus tentans durch Ecdyson. Exp Cell Res 20:623–626.

Gersch M. 1978. Die klassische Vorstellung der hormonalenSteuerung der Insektenhäutung im Lichte neuerexperimenteller Tatsachen: Produktion von Häutungs-hormon außerhalb der Prothorakaldrüse. Zool JbPhysiol 82:171–184.

Fig. 3. The 15 mostly representednations among ecdysionists. Par-ticipants across the last ten Ecdy-sone Workshops

Fig. 4. Female and male participants in the last 11 Ecdys-one Workshops.

The XIIIth Ecdysone Workshop in Jena was noexception. Jena and the surrounding area havelong been involved in the scientific field of insectdevelopment and moulting. A good 200 years ago,

iv Preface

Henrich VC, Sliter TJ, Lubahn DB, MacIntyre A, GilbertLI. 1990. A steroid/thyroid hormone receptor super-family member in Drosophila melanogaster that sharesextensive sequence similarity with a mammalian ho-mologue. Nucleic Acids Res 18:4143–4148.

Karlson P. 1961. Biochemische Wirkungsweise der Hormone.Dtsch Med Wschr 86:668–674.

Käuser G. 1988. Some statistical comments on EcdysoneWorkshops. J Insect Physiol 34:739–742.

Koolman J. 1989. Ecdysone: from chemistry to mode of ac-tion. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme-Verlag.

Maroy P, Dennis R, Beckers C, Sage B, O’Connor J. 1978.Demonstration of an ecdysteroid receptor in a culturedcell line of Drosophila melanogaster. Proc Natl AcadSci 75:6035–6038.

Oro A, Mckeown M, Evans RM. 1990. Relationship be-tween the product of the Drosophila Ultraspiraclelocus and the vertebrate retinoid X receptor. Nature347:298–301.

Program of the Ecdysone Workshops 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983,1985, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998.

Riddihough G, Pelham H. 1986. An ecdysone response ele-ment in the Drosophila hsp27 promoter. EMBO J5:1653–1658.

Shea MJ, King DL, Conboy MJ, Mariani BD, Kafatos FC.1990. Proteins that bind to Drosophila chorion Cis-regulatory elements: a new C2H2 Zinc finger proteinand a C2C2 steroid receptor-like component. GenesDev 4:1128–1140.