Olfactory Reception of Host Alarm Pheromone Component by the Odorant-Binding Proteins in the Samurai Wasp, Trissolcus japonicus (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae)

Jinping Zhang; Yongzhi Zhong; Rui Tang; K B Rebijith; Fengqi Li; Guohua Chen; Feng Zhang

doi:10.3389/fphys.2020.01058

Olfactory Reception of Host Alarm Pheromone Component by the Odorant-Binding Proteins in the Samurai Wasp, Trissolcus japonicus (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae)

Front Physiol. 2020 Sep 3:11:1058. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2020.01058. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jinping Zhang¹, Yongzhi Zhong^{1

2

3}, Rui Tang^{1

4}, K B Rebijith⁵, Fengqi Li⁶, Guohua Chen², Feng Zhang^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Bio-safety, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
² College of Plant Protection, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China.
³ Institute of Plant Protection and Agro-products Safety, Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hefei, China.
⁴ Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological Resources, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Plant Health and Environment Laboratory, Ministry for Primary Industries, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁶ Beijing Key Laboratory of Environment Friendly Management on Fruit Diseases and Pests in North China, Institute of Plant and Environment Protection, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁷ College of Agriculture and Ecological Engineering, Hexi University, Zhangye, China.

Abstract

The samurai wasp, Trissolcus japonicus, is the predominant egg parasitoid of the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, in its native range in China. (E)-2-Decenal is a major component of the alarm pheromone of H. halys, an important invasive insect pest with significant economic importance. T. japonicus can be strongly repelled by (E)-2-decenal, and thus its host location efficiency would be reduced in the field. Better understanding on the molecular basis of olfactory reception of this host alarm pheromone component by T. japonicus may provide opportunities to develop novel approaches to enhance biological control efficacy of the parasitoid against H. halys. We identified six Odorant Binding Proteins (OBPs) from T. japonicus by transcriptome sequencing, within which three classical OBPs were expressed in a heterologous expression system with E. coli, harvested, and then challenged with (E)-2-decenal in binding assay experiments. TjapOBP2 showed the highest binding ability to (E)-2-decenal, compared to TjapOBP1 and TjapOBP3. Our results unambiguously suggest that TjapOBP2 would play an important role in discriminating (E)-2-decenal and could be a possible target for further intervention in the parasitoid-host system.

Keywords: (E)-2-decenal; brown marmorated stink bug; egg parasitoid; insect olfaction; transcriptome.