English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Males of the parasitic wasp genus  Nasonia  use blends of chiral hydroxylactones as sex pheromones to attract conspecific females. Whereas all  Nasonia  species use a mixture of (4 R ,5 S )-5-hydroxy-4-decanolide (RS) and 4-methylquinazoline (MQ) as sex pheromones,  Nasonia vitripennis  evolved (4 R ,5 R )-5-hydroxy-4-decanolide (RR) as an extra sex pheromone component. We recently identified and functionally characterized three short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases (SDRs) NV10127, NV10128, and NV10129 that are capable of catalyzing the epimerization of RS to RR via (4 R )-5-oxo-4-decanolide (ODL) as intermediate. Despite their very high sequence identities of 88–98%, these proteins differ drastically in their ability to epimerize RS to RR and in their stereoselectivity when reducing ODL to RR/RS. Here, in order to unravel the sequence differences underlying these varying functional properties of NV1027, NV10128 and NV10129, we created chimeras of the three enzymes and monitored their catalytic activities  in vitro . The results show that a few amino acid changes at the C-termini and active sites of  Nasonia vitripennis  SDRs lead to substantially altered RS to RR epimerization and ODL-reduction activities. Thus, our study adds to the understanding of pheromone evolution by showing that subtle mutations in key biosynthetic enzymes can result in drastic effects on the composition of chemical signals.

scientific reports

Mapping key amino acid residues for the epimerase efficiency and stereospecificity of the sex pheromone biosynthetic short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases of Nasonia