Pyrazines from bacteria and ants: convergent chemistry within an ecological niche.

ABSTRACT: Ants use pheromones to coordinate their communal activity. Volatile pyrazines, for instance, mediate food resource gathering and alarm behaviors in different ant species. Here we report that leaf-cutter ant-associated bacteria produce a family of pyrazines that includes members previously identified as ant trail and alarm pheromones. We found that L-threonine induces the bacterial production of the trail pheromone pyrazines, which are common for the host leaf-cutter ants. Isotope feeding experiments revealed that L-threonine along with sodium acetate were the biosynthetic precursors of these natural products and a biosynthetic pathway was proposed.

SUBMITTER: Silva-Junior EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5803209 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature