Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects
The gene family of insect olfactory receptors (ORs) has expanded greatly over the course of evolution. ORs enable insects to detect volatile chemicals and therefore play an important role in social interactions, enemy and prey recognition, and foraging. The sequences of several thousand ORs are know...
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MDPI AG
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Genes |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/5/919 |
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| author | Pablo Mier Jean-Fred Fontaine Marah Stoldt Romain Libbrecht Carlotta Martelli Susanne Foitzik Miguel A. Andrade-Navarro |
| author_facet | Pablo Mier Jean-Fred Fontaine Marah Stoldt Romain Libbrecht Carlotta Martelli Susanne Foitzik Miguel A. Andrade-Navarro |
| author_sort | Pablo Mier |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The gene family of insect olfactory receptors (ORs) has expanded greatly over the course of evolution. ORs enable insects to detect volatile chemicals and therefore play an important role in social interactions, enemy and prey recognition, and foraging. The sequences of several thousand ORs are known, but their specific function or their ligands have only been identified for very few of them. To advance the functional characterization of ORs, we have assembled, curated, and aligned the sequences of 3902 ORs from 21 insect species, which we provide as an annotated online resource. Using functionally characterized proteins from the fly <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>, the mosquito <i>Anopheles gambiae</i> and the ant <i>Harpegnathos saltator</i>, we identified amino acid positions that best predict response to ligands. We examined the conservation of these predicted relevant residues in all OR subfamilies; the results showed that the subfamilies that expanded strongly in social insects had a high degree of conservation in their binding sites. This suggests that the ORs of social insect families are typically finely tuned and exhibit sensitivity to very similar odorants. Our novel approach provides a powerful tool to exploit functional information from a limited number of genes to study the functional evolution of large gene families. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:48:54Z |
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| id | doaj.art-01abf337934e4e20a7db564013e58e64 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-4425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:48:54Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
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| record_format | Article |
| series | Genes |
| spelling | doaj.art-01abf337934e4e20a7db564013e58e642023-11-23T11:11:36ZengMDPI AGGenes2073-44252022-05-0113591910.3390/genes13050919Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social InsectsPablo Mier0Jean-Fred Fontaine1Marah Stoldt2Romain Libbrecht3Carlotta Martelli4Susanne Foitzik5Miguel A. Andrade-Navarro6Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Developmental Biology and Neurobiology (iDN), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyInstitute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch-Weg 15, 55128 Mainz, GermanyThe gene family of insect olfactory receptors (ORs) has expanded greatly over the course of evolution. ORs enable insects to detect volatile chemicals and therefore play an important role in social interactions, enemy and prey recognition, and foraging. The sequences of several thousand ORs are known, but their specific function or their ligands have only been identified for very few of them. To advance the functional characterization of ORs, we have assembled, curated, and aligned the sequences of 3902 ORs from 21 insect species, which we provide as an annotated online resource. Using functionally characterized proteins from the fly <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>, the mosquito <i>Anopheles gambiae</i> and the ant <i>Harpegnathos saltator</i>, we identified amino acid positions that best predict response to ligands. We examined the conservation of these predicted relevant residues in all OR subfamilies; the results showed that the subfamilies that expanded strongly in social insects had a high degree of conservation in their binding sites. This suggests that the ORs of social insect families are typically finely tuned and exhibit sensitivity to very similar odorants. Our novel approach provides a powerful tool to exploit functional information from a limited number of genes to study the functional evolution of large gene families.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/5/919odorant receptormachine learningchemical bindinginsects |
| spellingShingle | Pablo Mier Jean-Fred Fontaine Marah Stoldt Romain Libbrecht Carlotta Martelli Susanne Foitzik Miguel A. Andrade-Navarro Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects Genes odorant receptor machine learning chemical binding insects |
| title | Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects |
| title_full | Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects |
| title_fullStr | Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects |
| title_full_unstemmed | Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects |
| title_short | Annotation and Analysis of 3902 Odorant Receptor Protein Sequences from 21 Insect Species Provide Insights into the Evolution of Odorant Receptor Gene Families in Solitary and Social Insects |
| title_sort | annotation and analysis of 3902 odorant receptor protein sequences from 21 insect species provide insights into the evolution of odorant receptor gene families in solitary and social insects |
| topic | odorant receptor machine learning chemical binding insects |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/5/919 |
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