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Research article2012Peer reviewedOpen access

Candidate chemosensory Genes in Female Antennae of the Noctuid Moth Spodoptera littoralis

Jacquin-Joly, Emmanuelle; Legeai, Fabrice; Montagne, Nicolas; Monsempes, Christelle; Francois, Marie-Christine; Poulain, Julie; Gavory, Frederic; Walker, William B., III; Hansson, Bill S.; Larsson, Mattias C.

Abstract

Chemical senses are crucial for all organisms to detect various environmental information. Different protein families, expressed in chemosensory organs, are involved in the detection of this information, such as odorant-binding proteins, olfactory and gustatory receptors, and ionotropic receptors. We recently reported an Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) approach on male antennae of the noctuid moth, Spodoptera littoralis, with which we could identify a large array of chemosensory genes in a species for which no genomic data are available. Here we describe a complementary EST project on female antennae in the same species. 18,342 ESTs were sequenced and their assembly with our previous male ESTs led to a total of 13,685 unigenes, greatly improving our description of the S. littoralis antennal transcriptome. Gene ontology comparison between male and female data suggested a similar complexity of antennae of both sexes. Focusing on chemosensation, we identified 26 odorant-binding proteins, 36 olfactory and 5 gustatory receptors, expressed in the antennae of S. littoralis. One of the newly identified gustatory receptors appeared as female-enriched. Together with its atypical tissue-distribution, this suggests a role in oviposition. The compilation of male and female antennal ESTs represents a valuable resource for exploring the mechanisms of olfac-tion in S. littoralis.

Keywords

Olfactory receptor; Gustatory receptor; Odorant-binding protein; Expressed sequence tag; Lepidoptera; Spodoptera littoralis

Published in

International Journal of Biological Sciences
2012, Volume: 8, number: 7, pages: 1036-1050

      SLU Authors

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Zoology
      Genetics
      Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.7150/ijbs.4469

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/44043