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Published Online February 3, 2005
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1106267

Reports

Submitted on October 12, 2004
Accepted on January 20, 2005

Insect Sex-Pheromone Signals Mediated by Specific Combinations of Olfactory Receptors

Takao Nakagawa 1, Takeshi Sakurai 2, Takaaki Nishioka 3, Kazushige Touhara 1*

1 Department of Integrated Biosciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8562, Japan.
2 Division of Applied Biosciences; Crest of JST (Japan Science and Technology Cooperation)
3 Division of Applied Life Sciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Kazushige Touhara , E-mail: touhara{at}k.u-tokyo.ac.jp

We describe two male-specific olfactory receptors (ORs) in the silk moth, Bombyx mori, that are mutually exclusively expressed in a pair of adjacent pheromone-sensitive neurons of male antennae: one that is specifically tuned to bombykol, the sex pheromone, and the other to bombykal, its oxidized form. Both pheromone ORs are co-expressed with an OR from the highly conserved insect OR subfamily. This co-expression promotes the functional expression of pheromone receptors, and confers ligand-stimulated non-selective cation channel activity. The same effects were also observed for general ORs. Both odorant and pheromone signaling pathways are mediated via a common mechanism in insects.


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