ABC transporter functions as a pacemaker for sequestration of plant glucosides in leaf beetles.

ABSTRACT: Plant-herbivore interactions dominate the planet's terrestrial ecology. When it comes to host-plant specialization, insects are among the most versatile evolutionary innovators, able to disarm multiple chemical plant defenses. Sequestration is a widespread strategy to detoxify noxious metabolites, frequently for the insect's own benefit against predation. In this study, we describe the broad-spectrum ATP-binding cassette transporter CpMRP of the poplar leaf beetle, Chrysomela populi as the first candidate involved in the sequestration of phytochemicals in insects. CpMRP acts in the defensive glands of the larvae as a pacemaker for the irreversible shuttling of pre-selected metabolites from the hemolymph into defensive secretions. Silencing CpMRP in vivo creates a defenseless phenotype, ind

SUBMITTER: Strauss AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3843118 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature