Lobesia botrana is one of the key pests of grape: in my project I explore the possibility of a method that reduce the damage of the females by modifying the host-finding and the egg-laying behavior of this moth, which are mostly mediated by host-plant-volatiles (kairomones). Recent wind-tunnel studies have shown that a blend of three specific terpenoids emitted from grapevine plants, (E)-beta-caryophyllene, (E)-beta-farnesene and (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene (DMNT), elicits attraction comparable to that of the complete plant odor profile. Moreover, it was shown that the specific ratio among these compounds is crucial, since both the subtraction and the percentage variation of any of the three chemicals resulted into an almost complete loss of activity of the blend.
I am using a genetic engineering approach to create Vitis vinifera plants with altered emission of the three terpenoids. Stable cisgenic lines will be created following two strategies: the silencing of the genes responsible for the production of the three compounds (lack of the compounds) and their overexpression (alteration of the ratio between the compounds).
Normal and transformed plants will be compared in term of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission and changes in the insect behavior. Thus, the manipulation of the plant volatile profile could be used as a new and sustainable insect-control-strategy.