AUTHOR=Grosse-Wilde Ewald , Stieber Regina , Forstner Maike , Krieger Jürgen , Wicher Dieter , Hansson Bill S. TITLE=Sex-Specific Odorant Receptors of the Tobacco Hornworm Manduca Sexta JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience VOLUME=4 YEAR=2010 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2010.00022 DOI=10.3389/fncel.2010.00022 ISSN=1662-5102 ABSTRACT=

As odor information plays a vital role in the life of moths, their olfactory sense has evolved into a highly specific and sensitive apparatus relevant to reproduction and survival. The key players in the detection of odorants are olfactory receptor (OR) proteins. Here we identify four OR-encoding genes differentially expressed in the antennae of males and females of the sphingid moth Manduca sexta. Two male-specific receptors (the previously reported MsexOR-1 and the newly identified MsexOR-4) show great resemblance to other male moth pheromone ORs. The putative pheromone receptors are co-expressed with the co-receptor involved in general odorant signal transduction, the DmelOr83b homolog MsexOR-2. One female-specific receptor (MsexOR-5) displays similarities to BmorOR-19, a receptor in Bombyx mori tuned to the detection of the plant odor linalool.