Park Soo J, Pérez Jeanneth, Mendez Vivian, Taylor Phillip W
Applied BioSciences, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Sydney, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 4;15(1):743. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-84356-6.
Male tephritid fruit flies typically emit pheromones from rectal glands to attract mates. Consistent with this, virgin females of the cucumber fruit fly, Zeugodacus cucumis (French), were found to be attracted to volatiles emitted by crushed male rectal glands in Y-tube olfactometer bioassays. Electrophysiological studies identified several male rectal gland compounds that triggered responses in female antennae. In other studied tephritids, the proportion of each compound is similar in excised rectal glands and headspace of calling intact flies, but our initial investigations revealed substantial discrepancies in the abundance of aliphatic amides, suggesting additional sources of these compounds. To address the discrepancies, we examined the volatile chemistry of headspace, rectal glands, tergal glands, and cuticles from both sexes using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Our analyses confirmed previously identified compounds and also detected several previously unreported compounds. Notably, the aliphatic amides were found to be more abundant in both tergal glands and cuticle than in rectal glands in both sexes, suggesting glands associated with these sites as additional sources of these compounds in headspace. Most studies of tephritid sex pheromones have focused on rectal gland extracts, but insights of the present study indicate that headspace volatiles of live flies can also reflect contributions from other glands.
雄性实蝇通常从直肠腺释放信息素来吸引配偶。与此相符的是，在Y型嗅觉仪生物测定中，发现黄瓜实蝇（Zeugodacus cucumis，法语名称）的未交配雌蝇会被碾碎的雄性直肠腺释放的挥发物所吸引。电生理学研究确定了几种能引起雌蝇触角反应的雄性直肠腺化合物。在其他已研究的实蝇中，每种化合物在切除的直肠腺和求偶的完整雄蝇顶空中的比例相似，但我们的初步研究发现脂肪族酰胺的含量存在显著差异，这表明这些化合物还有其他来源。为了解决这些差异，我们使用气相色谱 - 质谱联用仪（GC-MS）检测了雌雄两性的顶空、直肠腺、背板腺和表皮的挥发性化学成分。我们的分析证实了先前鉴定出的化合物，还检测到了几种先前未报道的化合物。值得注意的是，在两性中，脂肪族酰胺在背板腺和表皮中的含量均高于直肠腺，这表明与这些部位相关的腺体是顶空中这些化合物的额外来源。大多数关于实蝇性信息素的研究都集中在直肠腺提取物上，但本研究的结果表明，活蝇的顶空挥发物也能反映其他腺体的作用。
