State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100193, China.
A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119071, Russia.
BMC Genomics. 2024 May 18;25(1):493. doi: 10.1186/s12864-024-10428-6.
Insects rely on sophisticated sensitive chemosensory systems to sense their complex chemical environment. This sensory process involves a combination of odorant receptors (ORs), gustatory receptors (GRs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs) in the chemosensory system. This study focused on the identification and characterization of these three types of chemosensory receptor genes in two closely related Phthorimaea pest species, Phthorimaea operculella (potato tuber moth) and Phthorimaea absoluta (tomato leaf miner).
Based on manual annotation of the genome, we identified a total of 349 chemoreceptor genes from the genome of P. operculella, including 93 OR, 206 GR and 50 IR genes, while for P. absoluta, we identified 72 OR, 122 GR and 46 IR genes. Through phylogenetic analysis, we observed minimal differences in the number and types of ORs and IRs between the potato tuber moth and tomato leaf miner. In addition, we found that compared with those of tomato leaf miners, the gustatory receptor branch of P. operculella has undergone a large expansion, which may be related to P. absoluta having a narrower host range than P. operculella. Through analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of male and female antennae, we uncovered 45 DEGs (including 32ORs, 9 GRs, and 4 IRs).
Our research provides a foundation for exploring the chemical ecology of these two pests and offers new insights into the dietary differentiation of lepidopteran insects, while simultaneously providing molecular targets for developing environmentally friendly pest control methods based on insect chemoreception.
昆虫依靠复杂的敏感化学感觉系统来感知其复杂的化学环境。这个感觉过程涉及到化学感觉系统中的气味受体（ORs）、味觉受体（GRs）和离子型受体（IRs）的组合。本研究专注于鉴定和描述两种密切相关的鳞翅目害虫——马铃薯块茎蛾（Phthorimaea operculella）和番茄潜叶蛾（Phthorimaea absoluta）——这三种类型的化学感觉受体基因。
基于基因组的手动注释，我们从 P. operculella 基因组中总共鉴定了 349 个化学感受器基因，包括 93 个 OR、206 个 GR 和 50 个 IR 基因，而对于 P. absoluta，我们鉴定了 72 个 OR、122 个 GR 和 46 个 IR 基因。通过系统发育分析，我们观察到马铃薯块茎蛾和番茄潜叶蛾的 ORs 和 IRs 的数量和类型差异很小。此外，我们发现与番茄潜叶蛾相比，P. operculella 的味觉受体分支经历了大规模扩张，这可能与 P. absoluta 的宿主范围比 P. operculella 更窄有关。通过分析雌雄触角的差异表达基因（DEGs），我们发现了 45 个 DEGs（包括 32 个 ORs、9 个 GRs 和 4 个 IRs）。
我们的研究为探索这两种害虫的化学生态学提供了基础，并为鳞翅目昆虫的饮食分化提供了新的见解，同时为基于昆虫化学感觉的环保型害虫防治方法提供了分子靶标。
