PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bastin-Héline, Lucie
AU  - Fouchier, Arthur de
AU  - Cao, Song
AU  - Koutroumpa, Fotini
AU  - Caballero-Vidal, Gabriela
AU  - Robakiewicz, Stefania
AU  - Monsempes, Christelle
AU  - François, Marie-Christine
AU  - Ribeyre, Tatiana
AU  - Cian, Anne de
AU  - Walker, William B.
AU  - Wang, Guirong
AU  - Jacquin-Joly, Emmanuelle
AU  - Montagné, Nicolas
TI  - A novel lineage of candidate pheromone receptors for sex communication in moths
AID  - 10.1101/707174
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 707174
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/20/707174.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/20/707174.full
AB  - Sex pheromone receptors (PRs) are key players in chemical communication between mating partners in insects. In the highly diversified insect order Lepidoptera, male PRs tuned to female-emitted type I pheromones (which make up the vast majority of pheromones identified) form a dedicated subfamily of odorant receptors (ORs). Here, using a combination of heterologous expression and in vivo genome editing methods, we bring functional evidence that at least one moth PR does not belong to this subfamily but to a distantly related OR lineage. This PR, identified in the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis, is over-expressed in male antennae and is specifically tuned to the major sex pheromone component emitted by females. Together with a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of moth ORs, our functional data suggest two independent apparitions of PRs tuned to type I pheromones in Lepidoptera, opening up a new path for studying the evolution of moth pheromone communication.