Abstract
Antennal olfaction is extremely important for insect survival, mediating key behaviors such as host preference, mate choice, and oviposition site selection. Multiple antennal proteins are involved in olfactory signal transduction pathways. Of these, odorant receptors (ORs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs) confer specificity on olfactory sensory neuron responses. In this study, we identified the olfactory gene repertoire of the economically important agricultural pest moth, Helicoverpa armigera, by assembling the adult male and female antennal transcriptomes. Within the male and female antennal transcriptomes we identified a total of 47 OR candidate genes containing 6 pheromone receptor candidates. Additionally, 12 IR genes as well as 26 odorant-binding proteins and 12 chemosensory proteins were annotated. Our results allow a systematic functional analysis across much of conventional ORs repertoire and newly reported IRs mediating the key olfaction-mediated behaviors of H. armigera.
Highlights
Olfaction, the sense of smell, plays a predominant role in mediating insect behavior including food source identification, oviposition site selection, mate choice, kin recognition and predator avoidance
odorant receptors (ORs) play a central role in chemosensory signal transduction processes that occur in olfactory receptor neurons
The main objective of antennal transcriptome sequencing was to identify genes potentially involved in olfactory signal detection in H. armigera
Summary
The sense of smell, plays a predominant role in mediating insect behavior including food source identification, oviposition site selection, mate choice, kin recognition and predator avoidance. The surface of insect antennae is covered with several different types of sensilla that are small sensory hair structures in which olfactory receptor neurons extend dendrites into the antennal lymph where peripheral olfactory signal transduction events occur. Previous studies have shown diverse olfactory genes including at least odorant-binding proteins (OBPs), chemosensory proteins (CSPs), Sensory neuron membrane proteins (SNMPs), odorantdegrading enzymes (ODEs), ionotropic receptors (IRs) and odorant receptors (ORs) involved in different steps in signal transduction pathway [3,4,5]. ORs play a central role in chemosensory signal transduction processes that occur in olfactory receptor neurons. ORs located on the surface of olfactory sensory neuronal dendrites in the antennae possess seven transmembrane domains (TMDs). Misexpression of several Drosophila IRs suggested that they might be tuned to a small odor panel such as small amine-like volatile compounds [12,14,15]
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