Japanese giant looper

Ando T., Ohtani K., Yamamoto M., Miyamoto T., Qin X. and Witjaksono (1997) Sex pheromone of Japanese giant looper, Ascotis selenaria cretacea identification and field tests. J. Chem. Ecol. 23, 2413-2423. 

Miyamoto T., Yamamoto M., Ono A., Ohtani K. and Ando T. (1999) Substrate specificity of the epoxidation reaction in sex pheromone biosynthesis of the Japanese giant looper (Lepidoptera Geometridae). Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. 29, 63-69. 

Matsumoto, S. and Ando, T. (2007). Determination of the pheromone-producing region that has epoxidation activity in the abdominal tip of the Japanese giant looper, Ascotis selenaria cretacea (Lepidoptera Geometridae)../. Insect Physiol., 53, 312-318. 

Witjaksono, Ohtani, K., Yamamoto, M., Miyamoto, T. and Ando, T. (1999). Responses of Japanese giant looper male moth to synthetic sex pheromone and related compounds. J. Chem. Ecol., 25,1633-1642. 

Insects have been ideal organisms on which to carry out semiochemical studies and as a majority of their pheromones are volatile or semivolatile they are particularly suited to GC-MS analysis. This, coupled with the slower introduction of LC-MS explains why the use of HPLC in pheromone identification is more limited however, this is changing. A recent report used the greater resolving power of chiral LC compared to chiral GC to directly measure the natural ratio of enantiomers of (Z,Z)-cis-3,4-epoxy-6,9-non-adiene, the female sex pheromone of the Japanese giant looper moth. This article also suggests that with the use of microcolumns LC-MS has the potential to rival GC-MS for sensitivity, thus taking HPLC out of its previous use of prefraction prior to GC-MS analysis and the purification and separation of synthetic pheromones. 

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