Lymantria dispar pheromone biosynthesis

In moths, it was discovered in Helicoverpa zea that a peptide produced in the subesophageal ganglion portion of the brain complex regulates pheromone production in female moths (19). This factor has been purified and characterized in three species, Helicoverpa zea (20), Bombyx mori (21, 22), and Lymantria dispar (23). They are all a 33- or 34-amino acid peptide (named pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide, PBAN) and have in common an amidated C-terminal 5-amino acid sequence (FXPRL-amide), which is the minimum peptide fragment required for pheromon-tropic activity. In the redbanded leafroller moth, it was shown that PBAN from the brain stimulates the release of a different peptide from the bursae copulatrix that is used to stimulate pheromone production in the pheromone gland found at the posterior tip of the abdomen (24). 

Golubeva E., Kingan T. G., Blackburn M. B., Masler E. P. and Raina, A. K. (1997) The distribution of PBAN (pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide)-like immunoreactivity in the nervous system of the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar. Arch. Insect Biochem. Physiol. 34, 391-408. 

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]. 

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