Their work, "Pheromone Reception in Fruit Flies Expressing a Moth's Odorant Receptor," is published in the current edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The project sprang from Leal's mosquito research. He develops and tests "stinky" chemical mixtures that attract female mosquitoes to traps; the mosquitoes are then tested for the presence of the West Nile virus.
As mosquitoes do not utilize species-specific sex pheromones and are not as amenable to genetic manipulations as fruit flies, Leal used the fruit fly-silkworm system to address important olfactory questions.
"In native moth populations, such as the peacock moths, sex pheromones are so sensitive that males can detect female moths from several miles away," Leal said. "With the discovery of the first sex pheromone from the silkworm moth (Bombyx mori), it became evident that insects rely on compounds called semiochemicals to recognize not only potential mates, but also prey and specific features of the environment." Semiochemicals are compounds used in communication; pheromones are a subclass of semiochemicals.
Using the 17,000 sensilla or receptors on its antennae, the silkworm moth detects not only the major constituent of the sex pheromone, bombykol, but also a second compound, bombykal that is released by the female pheromone gland.
Leal explained that the pheromone-detecting sensilla house two olfactory receptor neurons, one specifically tuned to bombykol and the other to bombykal.
The molecular basis underlying the "extraordinary selectivity and sensitivity" of the insect's "nose" is still unknown, he said. Unlike fruit flies, silkworm moths are not readily amenable to genetic manipulation.
Kimbrell said Drosophila is an excellent model for g
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Contact: Kathy Keatley Garvey
kegarvey@ucdavis.edu
530-754-6894
University of California - Davis
27-Oct-2006