Abstract
Insects devote a major part of their metabolic resources to the production of odorant binding proteins (OBPs). Although initially, these proteins were implicated in the solubilisation, binding and transport of semiochemicals to olfactory receptors, it is now recognised that they may play diverse, as yet uncharacterised, roles in insect physiology. The structures of these OBPs, the majority of which are known as “classical” OBPs, have shed some light on their potential functional roles. However, the dynamic properties of these proteins have received little attention despite their functional importance. Structural dynamics are encoded in the native protein fold and enable the adaptation of proteins to substrate binding. This paper provides a comparative review of the structural and dynamic properties of OBPs, making use of sequence/structure analysis, statistical and theoretical physics-based methods. It provides a new layer of information and additional methodological tools useful in unravelling the relationship between structure, dynamics and function of insect OBPs. The dynamic properties of OBPs, studied by means of elastic network models, reflect the similarities/dissimilarities observed in their respective structures and provides insights regarding protein motions that may have important implications for ligand recognition and binding. Furthermore, it was shown that the OBPs studied in this paper share conserved structural ‘core’ that may be of evolutionary and functional importance.
Highlights
IntroductionInsects are the dominant animal species on earth
Odorant Binding Proteins.Insects are the dominant animal species on earth
The “classical” insect odorant binding proteins (OBPs) were compared in terms of their structural features, and intrinsic dynamics
Summary
Insects are the dominant animal species on earth Their remarkable evolutionary success is largely attributed to their highly intricate olfactory systems. Olfactory processing takes place at the peripheral nervous system, and involves solubilisation, and transport of semiochemicals (pheromones, and odorant or sapid molecules) to olfactory receptors (ORs) [1,2]. ORs are located on the dendrites of sensory neurons and bathed in an aqueous medium known as the sensillar lymph. They mediate the detection of chemical cues. OBPs, which are the subject of this review, are implicated in the solubilisation, binding and transport of semiochemicals to ORs
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