On-site airborne pheromone sensing

Abstract

Pheromones and other semiochemicals play an important role in the natural world by influencing the behavior of plants, mammals, and insects. In the latter case, species-dependent pheromone communication has numerous applications, including the detection, trapping, monitoring and guiding of insects, as well as pest management in agriculture. On-site sensors are desirable when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are used as semiochemicals. Insects have evolved highly selective sensors for such compounds, so biosensors comprising complete insects, isolated organs or individual proteins can be highly effective. However, isolated insect organs have a limited lifetime as biosensor, so biomimetic approaches are needed for prolonged monitoring, novel applications, or measurements in challenging environments. We discuss the development of on-site biosensors and biomimetic approaches for airborne-pheromone sensing, together with biomimetic VOC sensor systems. Furthermore, the infochemical effect describing the anthropogenic contamination of the ecosystem through semiochemicals, will be considered in the context of novel on-site pheromone sensing-systems.

Olfactory biosensor for insect semiochemicals analysis by impedance sensing of odorant-binding proteins on interdigitated electrodes

“…It also made the impedance biosensor be a good candidate for practical applications in the near future. OBP-1F and OR1740 Helional -10 À 9 M - Vidic et al (2008) In our study, by directly targeting the insects′ sense of smell, interactions between OBPs and different semiochemicals could advance the progress in the understanding of chemical communication systems of insects, which showed strong potentials for applications in many fields, such as control of semiochemical pollution, insect vector-borne diseases, olfactory-based insect control technology, and even cancer diagnosis (Carey and Carlson, 2011;Wehrenfennig et al, 2013;Strauch et al, 2014). With more functional amino acid residues or peptides interpreted by molecular docking from the natural sequences of OBPs, we believe that along with insects OBPs, mutant proteins or peptide chains could be synthesized to be used as promising recognition elements in the future biosensors for practical applications.…”

“…The exceptional olfactory ability had inspired researchers to develop biosensors, which were mainly based on insect behaviors or isolated organs such as antenna (Schroth et al, 1999;Schöning and Poghossian, 2002;Fernández-Grandon et al, 2011), for different analytes detection, like 2,46-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and other explosives (Repasky et al, 2006;Rains et al, 2008), and even for diseases control and diagnosis (Carey and Carlson, 2011;Strauch et al, 2014). Because of the difficulties in interpreting quantifiable behavior responses and the short life time of insect organs (Fernández-Grandon et al, 2011;Wehrenfennig et al, 2013), odorant molecules of natural olfactory systems should be integrated into artificial systems to build specific sensors for semiochemicals detection.…”

Smell Sensors Based on Odorant Binding Proteins

“…Insects are known for their remarkable olfaction ability, which is crucial for them to distinguish, comprehend, and estimate the overall situation and even for their survival, reproduction, and social communication [26,45]. Therefore, semiochemicals of plants and animals can be detected by insects at low concentrations over a long distance, even dozens of meters away [46]. However, as the first filter of olfaction, there are not many kinds of OBPs to specifically sense these semiochemials.…”

Zinc Nanoparticles-equipped Bioelectronic Nose Using a Microelectrode Array for Odorant Detection

“…Both natural expressed and bioengineering expressed olfactory receptors can bind with odor molecules and transform the biochemical binding into electrophysiological signals, which can then be detected by physicochemical sensors, such as, microelectrode arrays and field-effect transistors. [10][11][12] However, the detecting capabilities of these bioelectronic noses were often influenced by varieties of inevitable noises, such as intrinsic noises of devices, random noises, biochemical shot noises, and coupling noises between biological elements and electronic devices. 13,14 These noises could overwhelm small response signals, reduce the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and then weaken the detection sensitivity, which all greatly limited applications of these biosensors.…”