Krieger Jürgen, Gondesen Inga, Forstner Maike, Gohl Thomas, Dewer Youssef, Breer Heinz
University of Hohenheim, Institute of Physiology , Garbenstrasse 30, Stuttgart, Germany.
Chem Senses. 2009 Jul;34(6):469-77. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjp012. Epub 2009 Mar 16.
The highly specific recognition of female-released sex pheromones in insects by sensory neurons of the male antenna requires specific receptors. Recently, a small family of related candidate pheromone receptors has been identified for a few moth species. In this study, the candidate pheromone receptor HR11 from Heliothis virescens has been characterized. HR11 was found to be expressed in numerous cells located in short and long sensilla trichodea on the male antenna. The HR11 cells are stereotypically arranged in a paired pattern together with HR13 cells, which respond to the major component of the sex pheromone blend. Triple in situ hybridization approaches revealed that each pair of an HR11 cell and an HR13 cell was ensheathed by supporting cells, which express pheromone-binding proteins, thus constituting a structural unit. The paired pattern of HR11/HR13 cells is reminiscent of the pattern described for BmOR-1- and BmOR-3-expressing cells in the antenna of Bombyx mori, which respond to bombykol and bombykal, respectively. These results suggest that the ligand for HR11 may be related to the HR13 ligand and furthermore imply that an arrangement of cells expressing related receptor types in the same sensillum may be a general principle in moth pheromone detection systems.
雄性昆虫触角的感觉神经元对雌性释放的性信息素的高度特异性识别需要特定的受体。最近，已为几种蛾类鉴定出一小类相关的候选信息素受体。在本研究中，对来自烟芽夜蛾的候选信息素受体HR11进行了特性分析。发现HR11在位于雄性触角上的短和长的毛形感器中的许多细胞中表达。HR11细胞与对性信息素混合物的主要成分有反应的HR13细胞以配对模式刻板地排列。三重原位杂交方法显示，每对HR11细胞和HR13细胞都被表达信息素结合蛋白的支持细胞包裹，从而构成一个结构单元。HR11/HR13细胞的配对模式让人联想到家蚕触角中表达BmOR-1和BmOR-3的细胞所描述的模式，它们分别对蚕蛾醇和蚕蛾醛有反应。这些结果表明，HR11的配体可能与HR13的配体相关，并且进一步暗示在同一感器中表达相关受体类型的细胞排列可能是蛾类信息素检测系统中的一个普遍原则。
