Abstract
Odorant binding proteins (OBPs) are proposed to be directly required for odorant discrimination and represent potential interesting targets for pest control. In the notoriously agricultural pest Adelphocoris lineolatus, our previous functional investigation of highly expressed antennal OBPs clearly supported this viewpoint, whereas the findings of the current study by characterizing of AlinOBP11 rather indicated that OBP in hemipterous plant bugs might fulfill a different and tantalizing physiological role. The phylogenetic analysis uncovered that AlinOBP11 together with several homologous bug OBP proteins are potential orthologs, implying they could exhibit a conserved function. Next, the results of expression profiles solidly showed that AlinOBP11 was predominantly expressed at adult mouthparts, the most important gustatory organ of Hemiptera mirid bug. Finally, a rigorously selective binding profile was observed in the fluorescence competitive binding assay, in which recombinant AlinOBP11 displayed much stronger binding abilities to non-volatile secondary metabolite compounds than the volatile odorants. These results reflect that AlinOBP11, even its orthologous proteins across bug species, could be associated with a distinctively conserved physiological role such as a crucial carrier for non-volatiles host secondary metabolites in gustatory system.
Highlights
Smell is undoubtedly the most important sensory for insects survival and reproduction (Li and Liberles, 2015; Groot et al, 2016)
The results uncovered that the one ratio model (M0) could not be rejected (p > 0.01) and all branches shared a normalized ω ratio of 0.2954 (Figure 1A), implying that purifying selection was acting on this cluster and AlinOBP11 would share a relatively conserved physiological function with its orthologous genes (Qiao et al, 2009; Zhou et al, 2010; Vandermoten et al, 2011)
To confirm whether odorant binding proteins (OBPs) in the Hemiptera mirid bug species could fulfill putative gustatory function, in the present study we especially focus on a putative non-olfactory organ biased OBP gene, the OBP11 in A. lineolatus
Summary
Smell is undoubtedly the most important sensory for insects survival and reproduction (Li and Liberles, 2015; Groot et al, 2016). Olfactory system that can sensitively and selectively detect biologically active odorants attracts great attention from researchers who attempt to explore alternative environment-friendly pest management strategy. In insect olfactory signal transduction pathway, several classes of membrane-bound proteins such as odorant receptor (ORs), ionotropic receptors (IRs), and sensory neuron membrane proteins (SNMPs) have been proven to play. Various functional studies toward important olfactory protein families such as OBPs or ORs lead to a quick discovering of some high-efficiency pest repellents or attractants In the alfalfa plant bug, A. lineolatus, behavioral active compounds were successfully screened via ligand binding assay of an antennae highly expressed AlinOBP10 (Sun L. et al, 2013).
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