bric à brac controls sex pheromone choice by male European corn borer moths

The sex pheromone system of ~160,000 moth species acts as a powerful form of assortative mating whereby females attract conspecific males with a species-specific blend of volatile compounds. Understanding how female pheromone production and male preference coevolve to produce this diversity requires...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 2818 - 11
Main Authors:	Unbehend, Melanie, Kozak, Genevieve M., Koutroumpa, Fotini, Coates, Brad S., Dekker, Teun, Groot, Astrid T., Heckel, David G., Dopman, Erik B.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London Nature Publishing Group UK 14.05.2021 Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio
Subjects:	14 38/32 38/39 45 45/41 45/43 631/158/856 631/181/2474 631/181/759 631/208/1515 9/10 Aldehyde Oxidoreductases Aldehyde Oxidoreductases - genetics Aldehyde Oxidoreductases - metabolism Alleles Animals Assortative mating Borers Butterflies & moths Corn Divergence Evolution, Molecular Evolutionary Biology Evolutionsbiologi Female Females Gene Expression Regulation Genes Genes, Insect Genetic modification Genome editing Genome-wide association studies Genome-Wide Association Study Humanities and Social Sciences Inbreeding Insect Proteins Insect Proteins - genetics Insect Proteins - metabolism Life Sciences Linkage Disequilibrium Male Males Mating Mating Preference, Animal Mating Preference, Animal - physiology Moths Moths - genetics Moths - physiology multidisciplinary Neural coding Ostrinia nubilalis Pheromone gland Pheromones Polymorphism, Genetic Quantitative Trait Loci Recombination, Genetic Reductases Science Science (multidisciplinary) Sex Attractants Sex Attractants - genetics Sex Attractants - physiology Sex linkage Sex pheromone Transcription Factors Transcription Factors - genetics Transcription Factors - metabolism Variation Volatile compounds
ISSN:	2041-1723, 2041-1723
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	The sex pheromone system of ~160,000 moth species acts as a powerful form of assortative mating whereby females attract conspecific males with a species-specific blend of volatile compounds. Understanding how female pheromone production and male preference coevolve to produce this diversity requires knowledge of the genes underlying change in both traits. In the European corn borer moth, pheromone blend variation is controlled by two alleles of an autosomal fatty-acyl reductase gene expressed in the female pheromone gland ( pgFAR ). Here we show that asymmetric male preference is controlled by cis -acting variation in a sex-linked transcription factor expressed in the developing male antenna, bric à brac ( bab ). A genome-wide association study of preference using pheromone-trapped males implicates variation in the 293 kb bab intron 1, rather than the coding sequence. Linkage disequilibrium between bab intron 1 and pgFAR further validates bab as the preference locus, and demonstrates that the two genes interact to contribute to assortative mating. Thus, lack of physical linkage is not a constraint for coevolutionary divergence of female pheromone production and male behavioral response genes, in contrast to what is often predicted by evolutionary theory. Many organisms, including moths, use pheromones to attract mates. A study using multiple genomic tools and gene editing identifies a new, neuronal gene underlying mate preference and shows that signal and response loci are in linkage disequilibrium despite being physically unlinked.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23 PMCID: PMC8121916
ISSN:	2041-1723 2041-1723
DOI:	10.1038/s41467-021-23026-x