A plant factory for moth pheromone production
Författare
Summary, in English
Moths depend on pheromone communication for mate finding and synthetic pheromones are used for monitoring or disruption of pheromone communication in pest insects. Here we produce moth sex pheromone, using Nicotiana benthamiana as a plant factory, by transient expression of up to four genes coding for consecutive biosynthetic steps. We specifically produce multicomponent sex pheromones for two species. The fatty alcohol fractions from the genetically modified plants are acetylated to mimic the respective sex pheromones of the small ermine moths Yponomeuta evonymella and Y. padella. These mixtures are very efficient and specific for trapping of male moths, matching the activity of conventionally produced pheromones. Our long-term vision is to design tailor-made production of any moth pheromone component in genetically modified plants. Such semisynthetic preparation of sex pheromones is a novel and cost-effective way of producing moderate to large quantities of pheromones with high purity and a minimum of hazardous waste.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2014
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1-3353
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Nature Communications
Volym
5
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Nature Publishing Group
Ämne
- Agricultural Biotechnology
- Ecology
- Organic Chemistry
Status
Published
Projekt
- The pheromone brewery
- Evolutionary mechanisms of pheromone divergence in Lepidoptera
Forskningsgrupp
- Pheromone Group
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 2041-1723