Turning the 'mustard oil bomb' into a 'cyanide bomb': aromatic glucosinolate metabolism in a specialist insect herbivore.

ABSTRACT: Plants have evolved a variety of mechanisms for dealing with insect herbivory among which chemical defense through secondary metabolites plays a prominent role. Physiological, behavioural and sensorical adaptations to these chemicals provide herbivores with selective advantages allowing them to diversify within the newly occupied ecological niche. In turn, this may influence the evolution of plant metabolism giving rise to e.g. new chemical defenses. The association of Pierid butterflies and plants of the Brassicales has been cited as an illustrative example of this adaptive process known as 'coevolutionary armsrace'. All plants of the Brassicales are defended by the glucosinolate-myrosinase system to which larvae of cabbage white butterflies and related species are biochemically adapted t

SUBMITTER: Stauber EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3334988 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature