ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Evolution of moth sex pheromone composition by a single amino acid substitution in a fatty acid desaturase.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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15 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Green synthesis revolution: harnessing biological factories for sustainable insect pheromone production in agriculture.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- Article
- Structure and Function of Alkane Monooxygenase (AlkB).Accounts of chemical research · 2023Review
- Evolutionary shifts in pheromone receptors contribute to speciation in four Helicoverpa species.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2023Article
- Evolution of Linoleic Acid Biosynthesis Paved the Way for Ecological Success of Termites.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Biosynthesis of Fatty Acid Derivatives by RecombinantJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Clustering of loci controlling species differences in male chemical bouquets of sympatricEcology and evolution · 2021Article
- Assessment of Fatty Acid Desaturase (Fads2) Structure-Function Properties in Fish in the Context of Environmental Adaptations and as a Target for Genetic Engineering.Biomolecules · 2020Review
- Desaturase specificity is controlled by the physicochemical properties of a single amino acid residue in the substrate binding tunnel.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2020Article
- Mapping key amino acid residues for the epimerase efficiency and stereospecificity of the sex pheromone biosynthetic short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases of Nasonia.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Carabidae Semiochemistry: Current and Future Directions.Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Review
- Differential gene expression in the evolution of sex pheromone communication in New Zealand's endemic leafroller moths of the genera Ctenopseustis and Planotortrix.BMC genomics · 2018Article
- Molecular identification of differential expression genes associated with sex pheromone biosynthesis in Spodoptera exigua.Molecular genetics and genomics : MGG · 2017Article
- Epimerisation of chiral hydroxylactones by short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases accounts for sex pheromone evolution in Nasonia.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Two fatty acyl reductases involved in moth pheromone biosynthesis.Scientific reports · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
For sexual communication, moths primarily use blends of fatty acid derivatives containing one or more double bonds in various positions and configurations, called sex pheromones (SPs). To study the molecular basis of novel SP component (SPC) acquisition, we used the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta), which uses a blend of mono-, di-, and uncommon triunsaturated fatty acid (3UFA) derivatives as SP. We identified pheromone-biosynthetic fatty acid desaturases (FADs) MsexD3, MsexD5, and MsexD6 abundantly expressed in the M. sexta female pheromone gland. Their functional characterization and in vivo application of FAD substrates indicated that MsexD3 and MsexD5 biosynthesize 3UFAs via E/Z14 desaturation from diunsaturated fatty acids produced by previously characterized Z11-desaturase/conjugase MsexD2. Site-directed mutagenesis of sequentially highly similar MsexD3 and MsexD2 demonstrated that swapping of a single amino acid in the fatty acyl substrate binding tunnel introduces E/Z14-desaturase specificity to mutated MsexD2. Reconstruction of FAD gene phylogeny indicates that MsexD3 was recruited for biosynthesis of 3UFA SPCs in M. sexta lineage via gene duplication and neofunctionalization, whereas MsexD5 representing an alternative 3UFA-producing FAD has been acquired via activation of a presumably inactive ancestral MsexD5. Our results demonstrate that a change as small as a single amino acid substitution in a FAD enzyme might result in the acquisition of new SP compounds.
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