A Conserved Odorant Receptor Tuned to Floral Volatiles in Three Heliothinae Species

PLoS One. 2016 May 10;11(5):e0155029. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155029. eCollection 2016.

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.

MeSH terms

  • Acetates / pharmacology
  • Action Potentials / drug effects
  • Action Potentials / physiology
  • Acyclic Monoterpenes
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Conserved Sequence
  • Female
  • Gene Expression
  • Insect Proteins / genetics*
  • Insect Proteins / metabolism
  • Male
  • Monoterpenes / pharmacology
  • Moths / physiology*
  • Oocytes / cytology
  • Oocytes / drug effects
  • Oocytes / physiology
  • Patch-Clamp Techniques
  • Phylogeny
  • Receptors, Odorant / genetics*
  • Receptors, Odorant / metabolism
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
  • Terpenes / pharmacology
  • Transgenes
  • Volatile Organic Compounds / pharmacology*
  • Xenopus laevis

Substances

  • Acetates
  • Acyclic Monoterpenes
  • Insect Proteins
  • Monoterpenes
  • Receptors, Odorant
  • Terpenes
  • Volatile Organic Compounds
  • 3-hexenylacetate
  • linalool
  • 3,7-dimethyloctan-1-ol
  • geraniol
  • citronellol

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31230062 to GW and 31471833 to YL) and National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB114104). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.