Premium
Narrow tuning of an odorant receptor to plant volatiles in S podoptera exigua ( H übner)
Author(s) -
Liu Chengcheng,
Liu Yang,
Guo Mengbo,
Cao Depan,
Dong Shuanglin,
Wang Guirong
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
insect molecular biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.955
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2583
pISSN - 0962-1075
DOI - 10.1111/imb.12096
Subject(s) - exigua , spodoptera , biology , beet armyworm , sex pheromone , insect , heterologous , pheromone , heterologous expression , antenna (radio) , receptor , olfactory system , sensory system , olfaction , odor , larva , olfactory receptor , gene , botany , neuroscience , biochemistry , telecommunications , computer science , recombinant dna
Olfaction plays an important role in insects in recognizing volatile compounds, which are used to find food and mates, as well as avoid danger, predators and pathogens. The key players in the detection of volatile compounds are olfactory receptor ( OR ) proteins, which are located within the dendritic membrane of sensory neurons and extend into the lymph of sensilla on insect antennae. In the present study, we identify an OR gene, named SexiOR 3 , which is expressed in adult antenna in both sexes, but with female bias, in the beet armyworm moth S podoptera exigua . Further in situ hybridization analysis revealed that SexiOR 3 was mainly located in short trichoid sensilla. In in vitro heterologous expression experiments, SexiOR 3 was narrowly tuned to E ‐β‐farnesene and several compounds of related structure, among 62 different compounds tested in this study. Furthermore, SexiOR 3 responds to E ‐β‐farnesene at a low concentration of 10 −9 M, comparable to that of pheromone receptors ( PRs) responding to the pheromones. This is a very interesting finding for a general OR , indicating that high specificity is a feature of at least one general OR and not only the PRs . The results suggest that the OR 3 gene may play an important role in the moth olfactory system, and underpins important insect behaviour.