Source: Guangming Daily - Guangming Network
【Look! Our Frontier Technology】
Guangming Daily, Beijing, July 1st (Reporter Jin Haotian) In the vast farmland, swarms of locusts that once darkened the sky were a nightmare for human agriculture. Now, Chinese scientists have not only cracked the "aggregation code" of locusts but also successfully mastered the key to precisely "turning off" this dangerous aggregation signal. The international academic journal "Nature" recently published online the research results of the team led by Academician Kang Le from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Professor Lei Xiaoguang from Peking University. The study first completely elucidated the entire biosynthetic process of 4-vinylphenol (4VA, hereinafter referred to as) in locusts, which is the core pheromone causing large-scale locust aggregation. Based on this, they successfully developed a small-molecule inhibitor that can accurately interfere with its synthesis, thereby preventing the formation of locust swarms. This has opened up a new path for building a green pest control system for agricultural pests.
Locust aggregation pheromones are the key drivers of locust plagues. In 2020, Kang's team was the first to identify 4VA as the aggregation pheromone of the migratory locust, ending half a century of scientific debate. However, how 4VA is synthesized in locusts, and how its synthesis is regulated by population density, remained an unresolved mystery.
The team's research found that the raw material for locusts to synthesize 4VA comes from the most common phenylalanine in plants. This cunning organism uses the intermediate products of the plant lignin synthesis pathway, requiring only the final two conversions within the body to produce the chemical signal that triggers locust aggregation. This "borrowing a chicken to lay eggs" strategy significantly reduces the energy and material consumption of locusts.
After years of exploration, the research team successfully identified the "molecular switch" that converts the intermediate 4-vinylphenol (4VP, hereinafter referred to as) into the final pheromone 4VA - two key methyltransferases, 4VPMT1 and 4VPMT2. The expression levels of these two enzymes significantly increase with the increase in locust population density, which is the core reason why gregarious locusts can produce 4VA while solitary locusts cannot. When researchers simultaneously inhibited these two genes using RNA interference technology, the release of 4VA dropped sharply, and the behavior of gregarious locusts also significantly changed to solitary state.
"It is exciting that based on an in-depth analysis of the structures of these two key enzymes, the research team precisely designed and screened an efficient small-molecule inhibitor - 4-nitrophenol (hereinafter referred to as 4NP). This inhibitor can prevent it from converting 4VP into 4VA," said Lei Xiaoguang.
Experiments have proven that the effect of the inhibitor is extremely significant: in the laboratory, injecting only 0.1 nanomoles of 4NP into gregarious locusts can greatly inhibit the production of 4VA; in a more realistic scenario, feeding gregarious locusts with wheat leaves sprayed with 4NP, their 4VA release rate also dropped sharply, and their behavior quickly shifted from gregarious to solitary. More importantly, even when solitary locusts were placed under conditions that usually induce their aggregation, after being fed with 4NP, they still remained solitary, while the control group quickly aggregated. This indicates that 4NP can effectively block the formation of destructive locust swarms.
"This study innovatively proposes and practices a brand-new pest control strategy: regulating their behavior through precise chemical intervention in the insect's pheromone communication system, rather than relying on traditional broad-spectrum insecticides for poisoning," said Lei Xiaoguang. This "green pesticide" based on "behavioral regulation" has high targeting, only affecting the key behaviors of target pests, is friendly to the environment and non-target organisms, and represents an important direction for the future of sustainable and environmentally friendly pest control in agriculture. It provides powerful scientific weapons for the global response to locust plagues, ensuring food security and maintaining ecological health.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7522307791450341942/
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