Abstract
The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella, is a world-wide pest of cotton and in some parts of the cotton growing region is controlled by the mating disruption technique using synthetic sex pheromone. The sex pheromone consists of two compounds, (Z,Z)- and (Z,E)-7,11-hexadecadienyl acetates, in about a 50:50 ratio. However, recently, a population with sex pheromone compound ratios of about 62:38 were found in cotton fields that use mating disruption in Israel. To investigate how the change developed, we compared the pheromone gland transcriptomes between a reference laboratory population and a population obtained from an Israeli cotton field utilizing mating disruption. We analyzed four biological replicates from each population and found transcripts encoding 17 desaturases, 8 reductases, and 17 candidate acetyltransferases in both populations, which could be involved in sex pheromone biosynthesis. The expression abundance of some genes between the two populations was different. Some desaturases and candidate acetyltransferases were found to have mutated in one of the populations. The differentially expressed genes play potential roles in sex pheromone biosynthesis and could be involved in causing altered female sex pheromone ratios in the field population.
Highlights
The pink bollworm (PBW), Pectinophora gossypiella (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is a key pest of cotton in the old and new world [1]
We focused on several important genes, including acetyl-CoA carboxylase, limited β-oxidation enzymes, fatty acid synthases, desaturases, reductases and acetyltransferases
We have found that the females from the Field populations are producing a higher ratio of the ZZ isomer (Table 1) and that males can find these females when exposed to mating disruption pheromone (Harari et al unpublished)
Summary
The pink bollworm (PBW), Pectinophora gossypiella (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is a key pest of cotton in the old and new world [1]. The sex pheromone of PBW females consists of two compounds, (Z,Z)- and (Z,E)-7,11-hexadecadienyl acetates (Z,Z-7,11–16:OAc and Z,E-7,11– 16:OAc) in about a 50:50 ratio [2]. The biosynthesis starts with the production of the saturated fatty-acid, stearic acid [3] (Fig 1), from the catalysis of acetyl-CoA by acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and fatty acid synthase (FAS). A double bond is introduced into the fatty acid chain at the Δ9 position by a Z9-desaturase to form oleic acid. After peroxisomal chain shortening by 2-carbons, another double bond is introduced by a Z11-desaturase producing both the Z and E isomers. The carbonyl group is modified to form a primary alcohol by fatty
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