Pine bark beetles require aggregation pheromones in order to colonize host trees and reproduce, so disrupting pheromone production may be an effective way to control these serious forestry pests. Monoterpenoid pheromone components of Ips and Dendroctonus spp. are synthesized de novo in midguts following stimulation with juvenile hormone (JH ) III. We initiated a small-scale genomics project to identify genes involved in JH III signaling and pheromone production. In total, 1671 ESTs representing 574 tentative unique genes were recovered from pheromone-synthesizing male I. pini midguts. Microarray expression analyses revealed significant differences between pheromone-biosynthetic and non-biosynthetic midguts, including the coordinate stimulation of mevalonate pathway genes. This presentation will summarize our work on identifying novel molecular targets for pest control using ESTs, microarrays, proteomics, and bioinformatics.
Species 1: Coleoptera Scolytidae Ips pini (pine engraver)
Species 2: Coleoptera Scolytidae Dendroctonus jeffreyi (Jeffrey pine beetle)
Keywords: microarray, forest entomology
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