Chemistry of Arthropod Secretions

描述：(申请人提供)昆虫和其他节肢动物组成 地球上所有被描述的物种的一半。尽管大多数这些物种 对人类生活没有立竿见影的影响，有些是极其重要的疾病 媒介(即采采蝇、按蚊、三叶虫、扁虱)，以及 有些已经发展成农业、森林和家庭害虫。化学 在昆虫与植物、动物之间的相互作用中起着核心作用 寄主，以及猎物和捕食者。这个项目的目的是 阐明这些相互作用背后的化学，基于一个关键的， 生物进化方法，以改善人类健康和福利的方式。 几亿年来，植物和昆虫一直是 共同进化。这种相互作用可以被视为一场延长的生物战； 地球上的大部分地区仍然是绿色的事实证明了这一有效性 植物防御系统。天然拒食剂和驱虫剂在 制定防御策略。我们希望找到新的和潜在的有用的东西 基于我们最新发现的次生昆虫的抗昆虫化合物 代谢物，既充当植物的“花蜜引导者”，也充当拒食的角色 探员们。该项目有可能减少农业使用的 常规杀虫剂。 在另一个项目中，我们计划对范围广泛的蜘蛛毒液进行筛选 结构新颖的神经毒素。有超过3万种被描述的物种 蜘蛛，以及这些无处不在的捕食者通常都能产生毒液 使它们的猎物瘫痪或死亡。我们计划使用电喷雾电离质量 用于快速分析大量以前未研究过的 蜘蛛毒液寻找可能作为铅的新结构类型 新的神经药理药物的化合物。 以色列一个研究小组发现雌性蚊子避免产卵 躺在被捕食性的Notonecta占据的静止的水中会让人兴奋 对蚊子控制的影响。发现这种水是令人厌恶的 即使在Notonecta被移除之后，也表明一种化学信号是 负责抑制产卵。我们希望将其描述为 负责的代理人与以色列小组合作。我们还计划进行一次 另一个重要的群体--扁虱的化学交流的合作研究 节肢动物疾病的病媒。 我们希望继续研究与昆虫有关的其他几个问题 化学反应。我们的目标是(I)发现重要的 节肢动物相互作用，(2)为新的防治技术提供基础 它应该适用于病媒和其他害虫，以及(3) 发现新的生物活性化学类型可以作为起点 导致药物开发或病媒控制的合成项目的积分。

DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant) Insects and other arthropods make up over half of all described species on earth. Although the majority of these species have no immediate impact on human life, some are extremely important as disease vectors (i.e. tsetse fly, anopheline mosquitoes, triatomine bugs, ticks.), and some have developed into agricultural, forest, and household pests. Chemistry plays a central role in the interactions of insects with plants, with animal hosts, as well as with prey and predators. The aim of this project is to elucidate the chemistry underlying these interactions, based on a critical, biorational approach, in ways that should improve human health and welfare. For several hundreds of millions of years, plants and insects have been co-evolving. This interaction may be viewed as an extended biological war; the fact that much of the earth is still green bears witness to the effectiveness of plant defenses. Natural anti-feedants and repellents play important roles in plant defensive strategies. We hope to find new and potentially useful antiinsectan compounds based on our very recent discovery of secondary metabolites, which serve plants both as "nectar guides" and as anti-feeding agents. This project has the potential to reduce the agricultural use of conventional pesticides. In another project, we plan to screen a wide range of spider venoms for structurally novel neurotoxins. There are over 30,000 described species of spiders, and these ubiquitous predators are generally able to produce venoms which paralyze or kill their prey. We plan to use electrospray ionization mass spectrometry for the rapid analysis of a large number of previously unstudied spider venoms to search for novel structure types which may serve as lead compounds for new neuropharmacological agents. The discovery by an Israeli research group that female mosquitoes avoid egg laying in still water that is occupied by predatory Notonecta has exciting implications for mosquito control. The finding that this water is repellent even after the Notonecta have been removed suggests that a chemical cue is responsible for the inhibition of oviposition. We hope to characterize the responsible agents in collaboration with the Israeli group. We also plan a collaborative study of chemical communication in ticks, another important group of arthropodan disease vectors. We hope to pursue several other research problems dealing with insect chemistry. Our objectives are (I) to discover the chemical basis of important arthropod interactions, (2) to provide the basis for new control techniques which should be applicable to disease vectors and other pests, and (3) to discover new biologically active chemotypes which may serve as the starting points for synthetic projects leading to drug development or vector control.