A Conserved Odorant Receptor Tuned to Floral Volatiles in Three Heliothinae Species.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27163122.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0155029 and PMC identifier 4862629.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Odorant receptors (ORs) play an important role in insects to monitor and adapt to the external environment, such as host plant location, oviposition-site selection, mate recognition and natural enemy avoidance. In our study, we identified and characterized OR12 from three closely-related species, Helicoverpa armigera, Helicoverpa assulta, Heliothis virescens, sharing between 90 and 98% of their amino acids. The tissue expression pattern analysis in H. armigera showed that HarmOR12 was strongly expressed both in male and female antennae, but not in other tissues. Functional analysis performed in the heterologous Xenopus expression system showed that all three OR12 were tuned to six structurally related plant volatiles. Electroantennogram recordings from male and female antennae of H. armigera closely matched the data of in vitro functional studies. Our results revealed that OR12 has a conserved role in Heliothinae moths and might represent a suitable target for the control of these crop pests.
Medical subject headings
- Insect Proteins
- Moths
- Receptors, Odorant
- Volatile Organic Compounds