ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Novel family of terpene synthases evolved from trans-isoprenyl diphosphate synthases in a flea beetle.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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39 citing papers in PubMed, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- Expansion of the geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase gene family underlies the evolution of terpenoid biosynthesis in termites.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- MARTS-DB: a database of mechanisms and reactions of terpene synthases.BMC bioinformatics · 2025Article
- Natural Products from Soft Corals in Taiwan: Insights into Chemical Taxonomy and Potential Interaction in Marine Environments.Marine biotechnology (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Review
- Genome Mining Reveals a Novel Nephthenol-Producing Diterpene Synthase from the Sandfly Lutzomyia Longipalpis.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2025Article
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- A diterpene synthase from the sandflyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Biosynthesis of Haloterpenoids in Red Algae via Microbial-like Type I Terpene Synthases.ACS chemical biology · 2024Article
- Metabolic Engineering for Efficient Production of Z,Z-Farnesol inMicroorganisms · 2023Article
- Emergence of terpene chemical communication in insects: Evolutionary recruitment of isoprenoid metabolism.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2023Article
- Terpene biosynthesis in marine sponge animals.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Functional characterisation of twelve terpene synthases from actinobacteria.Beilstein journal of organic chemistry · 2023Article
- Differential gene expression underlying the biosynthesis of Dufour's gland signals inCurrent research in insect science · 2023Article
- Identification of a queen primer pheromone in higher termites.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Biosynthesis of iridoid sex pheromones in aphids.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Biocompatible fluorocarbon liquid underlays forRSC advances · 2022Article
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- Mining genomes to illuminate the specialized chemistry of life.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2021Review
- The Scent of Life: Phoretic Nematodes Use Wasp Volatiles and Carbon Dioxide to Choose Functional Vehicles for Dispersal.Journal of chemical ecology · 2021Article
- A novel terpene synthase controls differences in anti-aphrodisiac pheromone production between closely related Heliconius butterflies.PLoS biology · 2021Article
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11 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sesquiterpenes play important roles in insect communication, for example as pheromones. However, no sesquiterpene synthases, the enzymes involved in construction of the basic carbon skeleton, have been identified in insects to date. We investigated the biosynthesis of the sesquiterpene (6R,7S)-himachala-9,11-diene in the crucifer flea beetle Phyllotreta striolata, a compound previously identified as a male-produced aggregation pheromone in several Phyllotreta species. A (6R,7S)-himachala-9,11-diene-producing sesquiterpene synthase activity was detected in crude beetle protein extracts, but only when (Z,E)-farnesyl diphosphate [(Z,E)-FPP] was offered as a substrate. No sequences resembling sesquiterpene synthases from plants, fungi, or bacteria were found in the P. striolata transcriptome, but we identified nine divergent putative trans-isoprenyl diphosphate synthase (trans-IDS) transcripts. Four of these putative trans-IDSs exhibited terpene synthase (TPS) activity when heterologously expressed. Recombinant PsTPS1 converted (Z,E)-FPP to (6R,7S)-himachala-9,11-diene and other sesquiterpenes observed in beetle extracts. RNAi-mediated knockdown of PsTPS1 mRNA in P. striolata males led to reduced emission of aggregation pheromone, confirming a significant role of PsTPS1 in pheromone biosynthesis. Two expressed enzymes showed genuine IDS activity, with PsIDS1 synthesizing (E,E)-FPP, whereas PsIDS3 produced neryl diphosphate, (Z,Z)-FPP, and (Z,E)-FPP. In a phylogenetic analysis, the PsTPS enzymes and PsIDS3 were clearly separated from a clade of known coleopteran trans-IDS enzymes including PsIDS1 and PsIDS2. However, the exon-intron structures of IDS and TPS genes in P. striolata are conserved, suggesting that this TPS gene family evolved from trans-IDS ancestors.
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