Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 6;7:45531. doi: 10.1038/srep45531.
As one of the most notorious ectoparasites, bed bugs rely heavily on human or animal blood sources for survival, mating and reproduction. Chemoreception, mediated by the odorant receptors on the membrane of olfactory sensory neurons, plays a vital role in their host seeking and risk aversion processes. We investigated the responses of odorant receptors to a large spectrum of semiochemicals, including human odorants and plant-released volatiles and found that strong responses were sparse; aldehydes/ketones were the most efficient stimuli, while carboxylic acids and aliphatics/aromatics were comparatively less effective in eliciting responses from bed bug odorant receptors. In bed bugs, both the odorant identity and concentrations play important roles in determining the strength of these responses. The odor space constructed based on the responses from all the odorant receptors tested revealed that odorants within the same chemical group are widely dispersed while odorants from different groups are intermingled, suggesting the complexity of odorant encoding in the bed bug odorant receptors. This study provides a comprehensive picture of the olfactory coding mechanisms of bed bugs that will ultimately contribute to the design and development of novel olfactory-based strategies to reduce both the biting nuisance and disease transmission from bed bugs.
作为最臭名昭著的外寄生虫之一，臭虫严重依赖人类或动物血液来源来生存、交配和繁殖。化学感受作用，由嗅觉感觉神经元膜上的气味受体介导，在它们的宿主寻找和风险回避过程中起着至关重要的作用。我们研究了气味受体对包括人类气味和植物释放的挥发性物质在内的大量半化学物质的反应，发现强烈的反应很少；醛/酮是最有效的刺激物，而羧酸和脂肪族/芳香族则在引起臭虫气味受体反应方面效果较差。在臭虫中，气味的身份和浓度都在决定这些反应的强度方面起着重要作用。基于所有测试的气味受体的反应构建的气味空间表明，同一化学组内的气味广泛分散，而来自不同组的气味则相互混合，这表明臭虫气味受体中气味的编码复杂性。这项研究提供了臭虫嗅觉编码机制的全面描述，最终将有助于设计和开发基于嗅觉的新策略，以减少臭虫的叮咬和传播疾病。
