Supersensitive Odorant Receptor Underscores Pleiotropic Roles of Indoles in Mosquito Ecology.

ABSTRACT: Mosquitoes exhibit highly diverse and fast evolving odorant receptors (ORs). The indole-sensitive OR gene clade, comprised of Or2 and Or10 is a notable exception on account of its conservation in both mosquito subfamilies. This group of paralogous genes exhibits a complex developmental expression pattern in Aedes aegypti: AaegOr2 is expressed in both adults and larvae, AaegOr10 is adult-specific and a third member named AaegOr9 is larva-specific. OR2 and OR10 have been deorphanized and are selectively activated by indole and skatole, respectively. Using the two-electrode voltage clamp of Xenopus oocytes expressing Ae. aegypti ORs, we show that AaegOR9 is supersensitive and narrowly tuned to skatole. Our findings suggest that

SUBMITTER: Ruel DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6353850 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature