Abstract
Cotesia vestalis is an endoparasitic wasp that attacks larvae of the diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella), a herbivore of cruciferous plants. Females of C. vestalis use herbivore-induced plant odorants released from plants infested by P. xylostella as a host-searching cue. Transcriptome pyrosequencing was used to identify genes in the antennae of C. vestalis adult females coding for odorant receptors (ORs) and odorant binding proteins (OBPs) involved in insect olfactory perception. Quantitative gene expression analyses showed that a few OR and OBP genes were expressed exclusively in the antenna of C. vestalis adult females whereas most other classes of genes were expressed in the antennae of both males and females, indicating their diversity in importance for the olfactory sensory system. Together, transcriptome profiling of C. vestalis genes involved in the antennal odorant-sensory system helps in detecting genes involved in host- and food-search behaviors through infochemically-mediated interactions.
Highlights
In insect sensory systems antennae, maxillary palps and/or labial palps are the main olfactory organs
After excluding ribosomal RNA, the number of valid reads strongly decreased to 247 361 and showed that only library 2 was not contaminated with rRNA (93 009 valid reads minus rRNA). This was probably due to the enrichment of mRNA through two rounds of mRNA purification: the first using the RiboMinus Eukaryote Kit (Invitrogen) after purification; and the second using the Ovation RNA-Seq System (NuGEN), in which Oligo dT primers were used for Reverse Transcriptase (RT) reaction
Quality-checked transcriptome pyrosequencing reads of genes expressed in the antennae of C. vestalis adult females assembled into 17 328 contigs, including 64 odorant receptors (ORs) and 74 odorant binding proteins (OBPs) contigs
Summary
In insect sensory systems antennae, maxillary palps and/or labial palps are the main olfactory organs. In these specific parts, olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are enclosed in hair-like cuticular structures with multiple pores, called sensilla. The two large gene families expressing OBPs and odorant receptors (ORs), characterize the molecular basis of insect olfaction and are assumed to be exclusive to this group of animals [4]. OBPs are small (10 to 30 kDa) globular and highly abundant proteins. They are thought to be involved in the uptake of volatile, hydrophobic compounds from the environment and their translocation to odorant receptors located in the ORN membranes [5,6,7,8]. OBPs have been suggested to filter or purify odorants [8,9], to act as activator factors of ORs (after conformational change) [10] or as carriers expressed in nonolfactory tissue [11,12]
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