Abstract
Chemoreception in insects is mediated by small odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) that are believed to carry lipophilic stimuli to the olfactory receptor cells through the aqueous sensillar lymph. Binding experiments and recent structural studies of OBPs have illustrated their versatility and ability to accommodate ligands of different shapes and chemical structures. We expressed and purified seven recombinant OBPs (MmedOBP1-MmedOBP7) from the parasitic wasp, Microplitis mediator (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in a prokaryotic expression system. With 4,4′-dianilino-1,1′-binaphthyl-5,5′-sulfonic acid (bis-ANS) as a fluorescent probe, the ligand-binding specificities of these seven MmedOBPs with 50 small organic compounds were investigated in vitro. The results revealed that all of the M. mediator OBPs can bind a wide variety of odorant molecules with different binding affinities. The best ligand for all seven MmedOBPs was β-ionone. MmedOBP2 showed affinity for some aromatic compounds, whereas MmedOBP4 and MmedOBP6 bound several terpenoids. MmedOBP5 bound β-ionone, but did not bind any of the other potential ligands that we tested.
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Acknowledgments
We appreciate the assistance and comments of Prof. Paolo Pelosi, University of Pisa, Italy. This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Research Grants No. 30871640 and 30330410), The China National “973” Basic Research Program (Grant No. 2007CB109202), and Research Foundation of State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests (SKL2007SR01).
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Shuai Zhang and Li-Zhen Chen contributed equally to this work
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Zhang, S., Chen, LZ., Gu, SH. et al. Binding Characterization of Recombinant Odorant-binding Proteins from the Parasitic Wasp, Microplitis mediator (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). J Chem Ecol 37, 189–194 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-010-9902-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-010-9902-3