Abstract
Pheromones are biorational alternatives to traditional pesticides for control of insect pests. Tons of synthetic pheromones are produced yearly for this purpose. We want to develop a green chemistry-alternative, so-called sustainable chemistry, for pheromone production. Lipid insect pheromone components and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids will be produced by expression of specific insect genes in yeast. A fermentor system for overproduction of typical and common moth pheromone components will be designed to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. The pheromone components obtained from the yeast factory will be tested in monitoring baits and mating disruption dispensers and compared to conventionally produced pheromones in collaboration with stakeholders. In addition to desaturases and reductases, already well-known to us, we will unravel additional biosynthetic steps that are mediated by chain-shortening enzymes, elongases, fatty alcohol oxidases and acetyl transferases. The properties of the enzymes will be investigated and optimized for pheromone production by the production of engineered enzymes through site-directed mutagenenesis. A longterm vision is to design tailor-made production of any moth pheromone component in yeast. The proposed strategy is innovative, environmentally friendly, involves no phytosanitary risks, contains fundamental research challenges and has the potential to become an economically sound part of many IPM programs.
Sweden