Littoralis pheromone biosynthesis

The role of the nervous system in pheromone biosynthesis in moths is not clearly understood. In several moths, including L. dispar (Tang et al., 1987 Thyagaraja and Raina, 1994), H. virescens (Christensen et al., 1991), S. littoralis (Marco et al., 1996), and M. brassicae (Iglesias et al., 1998), an intact VNC was reported as necessary for pheromone biosynthesis by intact moths. On the other hand, in many species (even in some of those mentioned above) isolated pheromone glands responded to applied synthetic PBAN in an in vitro culture. 

Fabrias G., Marco M.-P. and Camps F. (1994) Effect of the pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide on sex pheromone biosynthesis in Spodoptera littoralis isolated glands. Arch. Insect Biochem. Physiol. 27, 77-87. 

PBAN has been reported to control sex pheromone biosynthesis in many other moth species, and the peptide itself has been found in many Lepidopteran species as well as in other insect orders. Since 1989 the primary sequence of PBAN has been determined in numerous other moth species (Bombyx mori [89], Lymantria dispar [90], Helicoverpa assuita [91], Agrotis ipsilon [92], Mamestra brassicae [93] and Spodoptera littoralis [94] either by sequencing of the purified neuropeptide or from cloned cDNA or gene sequence [95-97]. 

Rosell G., Hospital S., Camps F. and Guerrero A. (1992) Inhibition of a chain shortening step in the biosynthesis of the sex pheromone of the Egyptian armyworm Spodoptera littoralis. Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. 22, 679-685. 

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