An odorant-binding protein in the elephant's trunk is finely tuned to sex
pheromone (Z)-7-dodecenyl acetateValeriia Zaremska, Giovanni Renzone,
Simona Arena, Valentina Ciaravolo, Andreas Buberl, Folko Balfanz, Andrea
Scaloni, Wolfgang Knoll & Paolo Pelosi Scientific ReportsNovember 21,
2022 Abstract
Chemical communication in elephants has been well studied at the chemical
and behavioural levels. Pheromones have been identified in the Asian
elephant (Elephas maximus), including (Z)-7-dodecenyl acetate and
frontalin, and their specific effects on the sexual behaviour of elephants
have been accurately documented. In contrast, our knowledge on the proteins
mediating detection of pheromones in elephants remains poor and
superficial, with only three annotated and reliable entries in sequence
databases, two of them being odorant-binding proteins (OBPs), and the third
a member of von Ebner's gland (VEG) proteins. Proteomic analysis of trunk
wash extract from African elephant (Loxodonta africana) identified one of
the OBPs (LafrOBP1) as the main component. We therefore expressed LafrOBP1
and its Asian elephant orthologue in yeast Pichia pastoris and found that
both recombinant proteins, as well as the natural LafrOBP1 are tuned to
(Z)-7-dodecenyl acetate, but have no affinity for frontalin. Both the
natural and recombinant LafrOBP1 carry post-translational modifications
such as O-glycosylation, phosphorylation and acetylation, but as these
modifications affect only a very small amount of the protein, we cannot
establish their potential effects on the ligand-binding properties of OBP1.
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