Pheromone-Binding Proteins, Pheromone Recognition, and Signal Transduction in Moth Olfaction

Abstract

Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) (Pelosi 1994) are small (ca. <20 kDa), soluble proteins that occur tissue-specifically at high concentrations in the nasal mucosa of vertebrates (Pevsner et al. 1988, 1990) and the antennal sensillum lymph of insects (Vogt 1987). Although the precise physiological role for these OBPs in sensory transduction is not completely understood, biochemical data strongly suggest roles in odorant transport, odorant degradation and clearance, and perhaps selective delivery to a membrane-associated receptor (Pelosi 1994; Pelosi and Maida 1990). Odorant-binding proteins are known in two insect orders, Lepidoptera and Diptera (McKenna et al. 1994; Pikielny et al. 1994), and have more distant homologs in the Coleoptera (Carlson 1993; McKenna et al. 1994).