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Analysis of olfactory transduction mechanisms in the behaving hawkmoth Manduca sexta

Fachliche Zuordnung Kognitive, systemische und Verhaltensneurobiologie
Förderung Förderung von 2009 bis 2017
Projektkennung Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 122350432
 
Erstellungsjahr 2018

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

Manduca sexta females attract their mates with the release of a species-specific sex-pheromone blend with bombykal (E,Z)-10,12-hexadcadienal and (E,E,Z)-10,12,14-hexadecatrienal being the two major components. We searched for the hawkmoth bombykal receptor by testing candidate receptor proteins in heterologous expression systems. The putative pheromone receptor MsexOr1 co-expressed with MsexOrco in Xenopus oocytes elicited dose-dependent inward currents upon bombykal application. Coexpressed in HEK293 and CHO cells bombykal stimulation of receptors elicited rises in the intracellular free Ca2+ concentration. In contrast, MsexOr4 coexpressed with MsexOrco neither responded to bombykal nor to the (E,E,Z)-10,12,14-hexadecatrienal mimic. Thus, MsexOr1, but not MsexOr4, and also not MsexOrco, is the bombykal-binding pheromone receptor in the hawkmoth. Finally, we obtained evidence that phospholipase C- and protein kinase C-activity is involved in the hawkmoth´s bombykal-receptor-mediated Ca2+ signals in HEK293 and CHO cells. The overall progress of our investigations was hampered by the limited success of functional membrane incorporation in the used expression systems. We thus had to focus our attempts to main aspects of function and regulation of pheromone receptor proteins. Since new pharmacological tools were published we changed our original plan of work to concentrate with in vivo pharmacology on the most important question of the role of Orco in pheromone transduction and the question which pheromone transduction cascades are used by insects. With different physiological, biochemical, and pharmacological approaches we succeeded to show that MsexOrco does not underlie an ionotropic mechanism of pheromone transduction. Instead, bombykal transduction is metabotropic and MsexOrco is a voltage-dependent pacemaker channel that controls the membrane potential and thus the spontaneous activity of ORNS. MsexOrco is activated seconds after the pheromone stimulation, when voltage and second messenger levels are rising via bombykal-dependent activation of a phospholipase C cascade. In addition, controlled via daytime-dependent rhythms in cAMP and IP3 levels different second messenger-dependent ion channels are available for pheromone transduction during the course of the day. In addition, different pheromone transduction cascades are being employed, either metabotropic via PLC activation, or non-metabotropic via ligand-gated activation of guanylyl cyclases, depending on stimulus strength and length.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

 
 

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