Abstract
Aldehyde oxidases (AOXs) are a family of metabolic enzymes that oxidize aldehydes into carboxylic acids; therefore, they play critical roles in detoxification and degradation of chemicals. By using transcriptomic and genomic approaches, we successfully identified six putative AOX genes (HarmAOX1-6) from cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In silico expression profile, reverse transcription (RT)-PCR, and quantitative PCR (qPCR) analyses showed that HarmAOX1 is highly expressed in adult antennae, tarsi, and larval mouthparts, so they may play an important role in degrading plant-derived compounds. HarmAOX2 is highly and specifically expressed in adult antennae, suggesting a candidate pheromone-degrading enzyme (PDE) to inactivate the sex pheromone components (Z)-11-hexadecenal and (Z)-9-hexadecenal. RNA sequencing data further demonstrated that a number of host plants they feed on could significantly upregulate the expression levels of HarmAOX1 in larvae. This study improves our understanding of insect aldehyde oxidases and insect-plant interactions.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the members of Helicoverpa genome consortium for permission to use the genome sequences ahead of the publication. We also thank Professor Myron Zalucki of the University of Queensland providing us H. armigera pupae and Dr. Alexie Papanicolaou of Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE) in Western Sydney University for in silico expression analysis. Dr. Wei Xu is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) (DE160100382).
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Communicated by: Sven Thatje
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Xu, W., Liao, Y. Identification and characterization of aldehyde oxidases (AOXs) in the cotton bollworm. Sci Nat 104, 94 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-017-1515-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-017-1515-z