Search results for "Popillia"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Attracted or repelled?--a matter of two neurons, one pheromone binding protein, and a chiral center.
1998
Abstract Two species of scarab beetles, the Osaka beetle (Anomala osakana) and the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica), utilize the opposite enantiomers of japonilure, (Z)-5-(1-decenyl)oxacyclopentan-2-one, as their sex pheromones. Each species produces only one of the enantiomers that functions as its own sex pheromone and as a very strong behavioral antagonist for the other species. Using an integrated approach we tested whether the discrimination of these two opposite signals is due to selective filtering by pheromone binding proteins or whether it originates in the specificity of ligand–receptor interactions. We found that the antennae of each of these two scarab species contain only a …
Pheromone-binding proteins of scarab beetles.
1998
: We have characterized Pheromone binding proteins (PBPs) present in the antennae of several species of scarab beetles. In most cases there was only one class of PBP, which was expressed in both sexes. Both Anomala osakana and Popillia japonica possess a single PBP, highly homologous to each other. In each species the same PBP seems to recognize both enantiomers of japonilure, which have opposite biological functions, i.e., the sex Pheromone and the behavioral antagonist (stop signal). The purified PBP of A. osakana binds both enantiomers apparently with the same low affinity. Unexpectedly, these ligands were bound by moth PBPs, which utilize Pheromones with unrelated structures. These find…