Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, , Jena, Germany, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, , Tsukuba, Japan, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, , Tokyo, Japan.
Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Nov 20;281(1774):20132582. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2582. Print 2014 Jan 7.
The silkmoth Bombyx mori is the main producer of silk worldwide and has furthermore become a model organism in biological research, especially concerning chemical communication. However, the impact domestication might have had on the silkmoth's olfactory sense has not yet been investigated. Here, we show that the pheromone detection system in B. mori males when compared with their wild ancestors Bombyx mandarina seems to have been preserved, while the perception of environmental odorants in both sexes of domesticated silkmoths has been degraded. In females, this physiological impairment was mirrored by a clear reduction in olfactory sensillum numbers. Neurophysiological experiments with hybrids between wild and domesticated silkmoths suggest that the female W sex chromosome, so far known to have the sole function of determining femaleness, might be involved in the detection of environmental odorants. Moreover, the coding of odorants in the brain, which is usually similar among closely related moths, differs strikingly between B. mori and B. mandarina females. These results indicate that domestication has had a strong impact on odour detection and processing in the olfactory model species B. mori.
家蚕是世界上主要的丝绸生产动物，并且已经成为生物学研究中的模式生物，特别是在化学通讯方面。然而，家蚕驯化对其嗅觉的影响尚未得到研究。在这里，我们发现与野生祖先 B. mandarina 相比，雄性家蚕的信息素检测系统似乎得到了保留，而驯化家蚕雌雄个体对环境气味的感知能力都有所下降。在雌性家蚕中，这种生理损伤反映在嗅觉感受器数量的明显减少上。野生和驯化家蚕杂交的神经生理学实验表明，迄今为止被认为仅具有决定雌性的功能的雌性 W 性染色体可能参与了环境气味的检测。此外，在通常在亲缘关系密切的飞蛾中相似的大脑中气味物质的编码在 B. mori 和 B. mandarina 雌性之间差异显著。这些结果表明，驯化对嗅觉模型物种 B. mori 的气味检测和处理产生了强烈的影响。
