Pheromone gland transcriptome of the pink bollworm moth, Pectinophora gossypiella: Comparison between a laboratory and field population

Abstract

The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella , is a world-wide pest of cotton and in some parts of the cotton growing region is controlled by the mating disruption technique using synthetic sex pheromone. The sex pheromone consists of two compounds, ( Z , Z )- and ( Z , E )-7,11-hexadecadienyl acetates, in about a 50:50 ratio. However, recently, a population with sex pheromone compound ratios of about 62:38 were found in cotton fields that use mating disruption in Israel. To investigate how the change developed, we compared the pheromone gland transcriptomes between a reference laboratory population and a population obtained from an Israeli cotton field utilizing mating disruption. We analyzed four biological replicates from each population and found transcripts encoding 17 desaturases, 8 reductases, and 17 candidate acetyltransferases in both populations, which could be involved in sex pheromone biosynthesis. The expression abundance of some genes between the two populations was different. Some desaturases and candidate acetyltransferases were found to have mutated in one of the populations. The differentially expressed genes play potential roles in sex pheromone biosynthesis and could be involved in causing altered female sex pheromone ratios in the field population.

Novel RNA Viruses from the Transcriptome of Pheromone Glands in the Pink Bollworm Moth, Pectinophora gossypiella

“…Two different populations of pink bollworm were collected in Israel. One was from a laboratory colony (Lab) maintained at the Volcani Institute, Bet-Dagan, Israel, and the other one was collected from a cotton field (Field) near Ein Shemer, Israel, where mating disruption failed [4]. The laboratory population was maintained in the lab for many years but with the periodical addition of field-caught insects from Israel that had never been exposed to the PBW pheromone.…”

“…Methods for RNA isolation, sequencing library preparation and Illumina sequencing were described previously [4]. Briefly, total RNA from 30 pheromone glands was isolated using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer's protocol.…”

“…They successfully controlled PBW populations in the cotton-growing areas of the USA, Egypt and Israel for decades [3]. Recently, resistant populations to sex pheromones have been found in cotton fields of Israel, which compromises the use of this control measure [4]. The use of viral pathogens to manage PBW was also investigated.…”

“…Furthermore, viral sequence analysis from the transcriptome often identified multiple viruses that co-infected host insects without causing disease symptoms [10]. Due to the difference in the sex pheromone ratio between laboratory and field populations, and since there are no significantly different expressed genes involved in sex pheromone biosynthesis [4], we attempted to investigate transcriptome variations in viruses in the pheromone glands. Here, we observed significant numbers of contigs that hit viral sequences by BLAST annotations.…”

The effect of insect sex life on the world economy; Evasion of mating disruption with sex pheromones in insect pest control

“…Since retiring, I do not run active research, but follow the literature to see what other scientists do and learn from them. A short time ago, I found a paper [3] by authors from the Volcani Center, Israel, and Iowa State University. There I found what I had long been looking for -a report on mating disruption application with pheromones in the pink bollworm moth (Pectinophora gossypiella, Figure 3) and the appearance of a change in pheromone composition, as I forecasted years ago.…”