Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 35, Pages E2324-E2333Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1211436109
Keywords
entomopathogens; chemosensation; Heterorhabditis; Steinernema
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health US Public Health Service Training Grant [T32GM07616]
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
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Many parasitic nematodes actively seek out hosts in which to complete their lifecycles. Olfaction is thought to play an important role in the host-seeking process, with parasites following a chemical trail toward host-associated odors. However, little is known about the olfactory cues that attract parasitic nematodes to hosts or the behavioral responses these cues elicit. Moreover, what little is known focuses on easily obtainable laboratory hosts rather than on natural or other ecologically relevant hosts. Here we investigate the olfactory responses of six diverse species of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) to seven ecologically relevant potential invertebrate hosts, including one known natural host and other potential hosts collected from the environment. We show that EPNs respond differentially to the odor blends emitted by live potential hosts as well as to individual host-derived odorants. In addition, we show that EPNs use the universal host cue CO2 as well as host-specific odorants for host location, but the relative importance of CO2 versus host-specific odorants varies for different parasite-host combinations and for different host-seeking behaviors. We also identified host-derived odorants by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and found that many of these odorants stimulate host-seeking behaviors in a species-specific manner. Taken together, our results demonstrate that parasitic nematodes have evolved specialized olfactory systems that likely contribute to appropriate host selection.
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