Recipient Organization
HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY
128 HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY
HEMPSTEAD,NY 115491280
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Green lacewings are important natural enemies of crop pests. These insect predators are released in green houses and fields to control agricultural pests including aphids, whiteflies, and scale, among others. Pest management with lacewings is an effective strategy which is thought to be more environmentally sustainable than pesticide use alone. Harnessing the naturally occurring odors produced by lacewings, their host plants, or their prey has the potential to attract and retain green lacewings in and around crops which could improve pest control efficiency and decrease cost. The overall goal of this project is to develop new methods to attract and retain lacewings in crops. To achieve this aim we will collect and identify the odor compounds produced by lacewings that may attract them to crops and characterize genes underlying odor perception in lacewings. We will then usecomputer-based simulation to predict affinity between odor compounds and odor reception genes in lacewings and approach that could allow us to narrow in on the odor compounds most likely to work as attractants. The project builds foundational tools and information about odor production and reception in lacewings which could inform best practices for deploying these beneficial insects to control pests.
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
40%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
The long-term goal of this project is to increase the efficacy of green lacewings as biological control agents of agricultural pests by attracting and retaining them in crops. The specific objectives for this project build skills and tools in the chemical ecology of green lacewings while also identifying foundational information about semiochemical reception and production in these insects.1. Identify volatiles produced by Chrysoperla lacewings.A. Collect and identify volatile compounds produced by North American lacewings to generate a panel of compounds with the potential to attract lacewings.B. Characterize the extent to which volatile profiles vary by sex, species, and habitat preferences. 2. Characterize odorant binding proteins (OBPs) of Chrysoperla lacewings.A. Identify which Chrysoperla OBPs are involved in olfaction by antennal expression analysis.B. Assemble, annotate, and manually curate Chrysoperla OBPs for future molecular docking studies. C. Characterize expression and sequence evolution of OBPs in Chrysoperla.3. Apply computational molecular docking with lacewing odorant binding proteins.A. Test how simulated binding affinities between plant and prey volatiles and Chrysoperla sinica OBP1 compare to binding affinities measured in laboratory assays as a proof of concept for the potential of molecular docking in Chrysoperla.B. Compare binding affinities to plant and prey volatiles for Chrysoperla sinica and Chrysoperla carnea OBP1 to quantify functional conservation between these closely related species in similar ecological niches.
Project Methods
Objective 1 - Identify volatiles produced by Chrysoperla lacewings.We will collect and identify the volatiles produced by virgin adult male and female lacewings. We will trap volatiles from the headspace of adult lacewings using sorbent material and identify and quantify the volatile compounds using gas chromatography paired to mass spectroscopy (GCMS). Comparing the results of this paired approach with databases of known volatiles should allow identification of collected compounds. We will use these data to generate a list of identified volatile compounds from Chrysoperla lacewings. We will additionally compare the volatile profiles across species to identify potential species-specific compounds or species-specific blend ratios which could be useful in developing targeted attractants.Objective 2 - Characterize odorant binding proteins (OBPs) of Chrysoperla lacewings.Adult male and female lacewings from each species will be dissected. RNA will be extracted from pools of antenna, legs, and bodies. RNA sequencing libraries will be prepared and sequenced. We will compare gene expression across tissues to identify which OBPs have olfactory roles. Then we will compare OBPs expression between species using differential expression analysis and weighted gene correlation network analysis. Finally we will assemble and annotate OBPs involved in olfaction using automated assembly and annotation as a starting point and then manually curating assemblies and annotations.Objective 3 - Apply computational molecular docking with lacewing odorant binding proteinsWe will model 3D protein structure using publicly available protein sequence data for Chrysoperla carnea and Chrysoperla sinica OBP1. Laboratory binding affinities of 60 plant and prey volatiles are known for C. sinica OBP1. We will assess computational binding affinities for those same plant and prey volatiles to the modeled C. sinica OBP1 protein structure and assess agreement between molecular docking and laboratory binding studies. We will then expand this approach to include C. carnea and assess how conserved OBP1 binding affinities are to plant and prey volatiles across Chrysoperla species.