Abstract
The sex pheromone receptors (SPRs) of Lepidopteran insects play important roles in chemical communication. In the sex pheromone detection processes, sex pheromone molecule (SPM), SPR, co-receptor (Orco), pheromone binding protein (PBP), sensory neuron membrane protein (SNMP), and pheromone degradation enzyme (PDE) play individual and cooperative roles. Commonly known as butterfly and moth, the Lepidopteran insects are widely distributed throughout the world, most of which are pests. Comprehensive knowledge of the SPRs of Lepidopteran insects would help the development of sex lure technology and the sex communication pathway research. In this review, we summarized SPR/Orco information from 10 families of Lepidopteran insects from corresponding studies. According to the research progress in the literature, we speculated the evolution of SPRs/Orcos and phylogenetically analyzed the Lepidopteran SPRs and Orcos with the neighbor-joining tree and further concluded the relationship between the cluster of SPRs and their ligands; we analyzed the predicted structural features of SPRs and gave our prediction results of SPRs and Orcos with Consensus Constrained TOPology Prediction (CCTOP) and SwissModel; we summarized the functional characterization of Lepidopteran SPRs and SPR-ligand interaction and then described the progress in the sex pheromone signaling pathways and metabotropic ion channel. Further studies are needed to work out the cryo-electron microscopy (EM) structure of SPR and the SPR-ligand docking pattern in a biophysical perspective, which will directly facilitate the understanding of sex pheromone signal transduction pathways and provide guidance in the sex lure technology in field pest control.
Highlights
Belonging to general odorant receptors, insect sex pheromone receptors (SPRs) are expressed by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) and can detect volatile sex pheromones or other chemical signals to coordinate their social behaviors such as mating, reproduction, and alarming (Fleischer and Krieger, 2018)
We reviewed the phylogenetic analyses of Lepidopteran SPRs, and the evolution of the summarized Lepidopteran SPRs was analyzed through MEGA X (Whelan and Goldman, 2001; Kumar et al, 2018)
We reviewed the transmembrane predictions of Lepidopteran SPRs, and the protein structure of Lepidopteran SPRs was predicted by online software Consensus Constrained TOPology Prediction (CCTOP) (Dobson et al, 2015) and SwissModel (Bertoni et al, 2017; Bienert et al, 2017; Waterhouse et al, 2018; Guex et al, 2019; Studer et al, 2020)
Summary
Belonging to general odorant receptors, insect sex pheromone receptors (SPRs) are expressed by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) and can detect volatile sex pheromones or other chemical signals to coordinate their social behaviors such as mating, reproduction, and alarming (Fleischer and Krieger, 2018). The phylogenetic analysis of B. mori, Manduca sexta, Helicoverpa armigera, and H. virescens ORs and PxylOR1/3/4/5/6/7 shows that the 6 candidate SPRs cluster together in the group of SPRs (Sun et al, 2013). Neighbor-joining tree based on MUSCLE multiple sequence alignment of MsexOR1-5 and B. mori and H. virescens ORs shows that MsexOR1-4 belongs to the subgroup of SPRs, and a highly conserved Or83b group was indicated (Grosse-Wilde et al, 2010, 2011). A phylogenetic analysis that was performed using candidate SexiOR and OR repertoires from H. armigera, Helicoverpa assulta, Spodoptera littoralis, and B. mori revealed a highly conserved Orco that was clustered with orthologs from all four of these species, and another group of relatively conserved SexiOR6/11/13/16 belongs to the same clade as SPRs (Du et al, 2018). AGK43825.1 AGK43826.1 AGK43827.1 AGK43828.1 AGK43829.1 ASA39901.1 ASA39902.1 ASA39903.1 NP_001296031.1 CUQ99387.1
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