Abstract
The white-backed planthopper, Sogatella furcifera, a notorious rice pest in Asia, employs host plant volatiles as cues for host location. In insects, odor detection is mediated by two types of olfactory receptors: odorant receptors (ORs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs). In this study, we identified 63 SfurORs and 14 SfurIRs in S. furcifera based on sequences obtained from the head transcriptome and bioinformatics analysis. The motif-pattern of 130 hemiptera ORs indicated an apparent differentiation in this order. Phylogenetic trees of the ORs and IRs were constructed using neighbor-joining estimates. Most of the ORs had orthologous genes, but a specific OR clade was identified in S. furcifera, which suggests that these ORs may have specific olfactory functions in this species. Our results provide a basis for further investigations of how S. furcifera coordinates its olfactory receptor genes with its plant hosts, thereby providing a foundation for novel pest management approaches based on these genes.
Highlights
Insects can exploit chemical signals in the environment using their accurate olfactory systems, thereby mediating many important physiological behaviors, such as mate-finding, host location, and sending alarms to conspecifics
We determined the repertoire of olfactory receptor superfamilies (ORs and ionotropic receptors (IRs)) in S. furcifera due to their potential significance as target genes for developing new pest control strategies, as well as for elucidating the molecular mechanisms that underlie insect-host plant interactions
After extensive sequencing and assembly using Trinity RNA-Seq, we identified 63 odorant receptors (ORs) and 14 IRs in S. furcifera
Summary
Insects can exploit chemical signals in the environment using their accurate olfactory systems, thereby mediating many important physiological behaviors, such as mate-finding, host location, and sending alarms to conspecifics. The antennae are the major olfactory organs of insects, and they possess various types of sensilla, where peripheral olfactory signal transduction events occur. Three main types of proteins are generally considered to be involved in odorant molecule transduction in the sensillum. Odorants may diffuse into the sensillar lymph via pores, where odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) recognize and bind them. OBPs act as transporters to transfer odorants across the sensillar lymph to reach.
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