Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA.
Insect Mol Biol. 2020 Dec;29(6):523-530. doi: 10.1111/imb.12661. Epub 2020 Aug 16.
Many mosquito behaviours that are critical for survival and reproduction depend upon timely responses to chemical cues. Of interest are the effects of volatile organic compounds like carboxylic acids (CAs) that are released by potential blood meal hosts. Short chain CAs are among the primary attractants for host-seeking females and influence host selection in vector species. Although the behavioural relevance of CA's has been established, less is known about the molecular receptive events that evoke responses to specific compounds, with the Ir family of chemoreceptors being broadly implicated in their detection. In this study, we demonstrate that Or orthologs from two vector species, Aedes aegypti (L.) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse), are selectively activated by straight chain carboxylic acids and that these responses are attenuated by the commercial insect repellant N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide. Our results suggest that multiple chemoreceptors, representing diverse families, are able to mediate molecular responses to CAs and may therefore underlie important behaviours that directly impact disease-transmission cycles.
许多对生存和繁殖至关重要的蚊子行为依赖于对化学线索的及时反应。人们感兴趣的是挥发性有机化合物（VOCs）的影响，如潜在的血液餐宿主释放的羧酸（CA）。短链 CA 是宿主寻找雌性的主要引诱剂，并影响媒介物种的宿主选择。尽管已经确定了 CA 的行为相关性，但对于引发对特定化合物反应的分子接受事件知之甚少，Ir 家族的化学感受器广泛涉及到它们的检测。在这项研究中，我们证明了来自两种媒介物种埃及伊蚊（L.）和白纹伊蚊（Skuse）的 Or 直系同源物被直链羧酸选择性激活，而商业驱虫剂 N，N-二乙基间甲苯酰胺可减弱这些反应。我们的结果表明，多种化学感受器，代表不同的家族，能够介导对 CA 的分子反应，因此可能是直接影响疾病传播周期的重要行为的基础。
