Identification and comparative expression analysis of odorant binding protein genes in the tobacco cutworm Spodoptera litura

• DOI: 10.1038/srep13800
• Publication Date: 2015-09-08T09:21:59Z
• Authors: Shao-Hua Gu; Jing-Jiang Zhou; Shang Gao; Da-Hai Wang; Xian-Chun Li; Yu-Yuan Guo; Yong-Jun Zhang
• Keywords: Male; Nicotiana; 0303 health sciences; Gene Expression Profiling; Amino Acid Motifs; Molecular Sequence Data; Computational Biology; Molecular Sequence Annotation; Spodoptera; Receptors, Odorant; Article; 03 medical and health sciences; Gene Expression Regulation; Organ Specificity; Animals; Insect Proteins; Position-Specific Scoring Matrices; Female; Amino Acid Sequence; Transcriptome; Sequence Alignment; Phylogeny

AbstractInsect odorant binding proteins (OBPs) are thought to involve in insects’ olfaction perception. In the present study, we identified 38 OBP genes from the antennal transcriptomes ofSpodoptera litura.Tissue expression profiles analysis revealed that 17 of the 38 SlitOBP transcripts were uniquely or primarily expressed in the antennae of both sexes, suggesting their putative role in chemoreception. The RPKM value analysis revealed that seven OBPs (SlitPBP1-3, SlitGOBP1-2, SlitOBP3andSlitOBP5) are highly abundant in male and female antennae. MostS. lituraantennal unigenes had high homology with Lepidoptera insects, especially genes of the genusSpodoptera. Phylogenetic analysis of the Lepidoptera OBPs demonstrated that the OBP genes from the genusSpodoptera(S. litura,Spodoptera littoralisandSpodoptera exigua) had a relatively close evolutionary relationship. Some regular patterns and key conserved motifs of OBPs in genusSpodopteraare identified by MEME and their putative roles in detecting odorants are discussed here. The motif-patterns between Lepidoptera OBPs and CSPs are also compared. TheSlitOBPsidentified here provide a starting point to facilitate functional studies of insect OBPs at the molecular level bothin vivoandin vitro.