Molecular identification and expression patterns of odorant binding protein and chemosensory protein genes in Athetis lepigone (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Ya-Nan Zhang; Xiu-Yun Zhu; Ji-Fang Ma; Zhi-Ping Dong; Ji-Wei Xu; Ke Kang; Long-Wa Zhang

doi:10.7717/peerj.3157

Molecular identification and expression patterns of odorant binding protein and chemosensory protein genes in Athetis lepigone (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

PeerJ. 2017 Mar 30:5:e3157. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3157. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Ya-Nan Zhang¹, Xiu-Yun Zhu², Ji-Fang Ma³, Zhi-Ping Dong³, Ji-Wei Xu², Ke Kang⁴, Long-Wa Zhang⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Sciences, Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei, China; Key Laboratory of Integrated Pest Management on Crops in East China, Ministry of Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests, Ministry of Education, College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.
² College of Life Sciences, Huaibei Normal University , Huaibei , China.
³ Institute of Millet Crops, Hebei Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences , Shijiazhuang , China.
⁴ Anhui Vocational & Technical College of Forestry , Hefei , China.
⁵ Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Control, School of Forestry & Landscape Architecture, Anhui Agricultural University , Hefei , China.

Abstract

The olfaction system of insects plays an important role in mediating various physiological behaviors, including locating hosts, avoiding predators, and recognizing mates and oviposition sites. Therefore, some key genes in the system present valuable opportunities as targets for developing novel green pesticides. Athetis lepigone, a noctuid moth can feed on more than 30 different host plants making it a serious polyphagous pest worldwide, and it has become one of the major maize pests in northern China since 2011. However, there are no reports on effective and environmentally friendly pesticides for the control of this pest. In this study, we identified 28 genes encoding putative odorant binding proteins (OBPs) and 20 chemosensory protein (CSPs) genes based on our previous A. lepigone transcriptomic data. A tissue expression investigation and phylogenetic analysis were conducted in an effort to postulate the functions of these genes. Our results show that nearly half (46.4%) of the AlOBPs exhibited antennae-biased expression while many of the AlCSPs were highly abundant in non-antennal tissues. These results will aid in exploring the chemosensory mechanisms of A. lepigone and developing environmentally friendly pesticides against this pest in the future.

Keywords: Antennae; Athetis lepigone; Chemosensory genes; Gene expression pattern; Phylogenetic analysis.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31501647), Natura Science Fund of Education Department of Anhui province, China (KJ2017A387 and KJ2017B019), the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest of China (201303026), and Open Fund of Education Ministry Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests of Nanjing Agricultural University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.