Pyrazines from bacteria and ants: convergent chemistry within an ecological niche

Ants use pheromones to coordinate their communal activity. Volatile pyrazines, for instance, mediate food resource gathering and alarm behaviors in different ant species. Here we report that leaf-cutter ant-associated bacteria produce a family of pyrazines that includes members previously identified...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-02, Vol.8 (1), p.2595-7, Article 2595
Main Authors: Silva-Junior, Eduardo A., Ruzzini, Antonio C., Paludo, Camila R., Nascimento, Fabio S., Currie, Cameron R., Clardy, Jon, Pupo, Mônica T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
140/131
631/158/670
631/92/349
Acetic acid
Bacteria
Food resources
Humanities and Social Sciences
Leaves
multidisciplinary
Natural products
Pheromones
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sodium acetate
Threonine
Trail pheromone
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Summary:Ants use pheromones to coordinate their communal activity. Volatile pyrazines, for instance, mediate food resource gathering and alarm behaviors in different ant species. Here we report that leaf-cutter ant-associated bacteria produce a family of pyrazines that includes members previously identified as ant trail and alarm pheromones. We found that L-threonine induces the bacterial production of the trail pheromone pyrazines, which are common for the host leaf-cutter ants. Isotope feeding experiments revealed that L-threonine along with sodium acetate were the biosynthetic precursors of these natural products and a biosynthetic pathway was proposed.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-20953-6