Receptor for detection of a Type II sex pheromone in the winter moth Operophtera brumata.

ABSTRACT: How signal diversity evolves under stabilizing selection in a pheromone-based mate recognition system is a conundrum. Female moths produce two major types of sex pheromones, i.e., long-chain acetates, alcohols and aldehydes (Type I) and polyenic hydrocarbons and epoxides (Type II), along different biosynthetic pathways. Little is known on how male pheromone receptor (PR) genes evolved to perceive the different pheromones. We report the identification of the first PR tuned to Type II pheromones, namely ObruOR1 from the winter moth, Operophtera brumata (Geometridae). ObruOR1 clusters together with previously ligand-unknown orthologues in the PR subfamily for the ancestral Type I pheromones, suggesting that O. brumata did not evolve a new type of PR to match the novel Type II signal but recru

SUBMITTER: Zhang DD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4700456 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature