Article
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Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Salivary Digestion Extends the Range of Sugar-Aversions in the German Cockroach
Version 1
: Received: 1 March 2021 / Approved: 2 March 2021 / Online: 2 March 2021 (09:14:36 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Wada-Katsumata, A.; Schal, C. Salivary Digestion Extends the Range of Sugar-Aversions in the German Cockroach. Insects 2021, 12, 263. Wada-Katsumata, A.; Schal, C. Salivary Digestion Extends the Range of Sugar-Aversions in the German Cockroach. Insects 2021, 12, 263.
Abstract
Saliva has diverse functions in feeding behavior of animals. However, the impact of salivary digestion of food on insect gustatory information processing is poorly documented. Glucose-aversion (GA) in the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, is a highly adaptive heritable behavioral resistance trait that protects the cockroach from ingesting glucose-containing-insecticide-baits. In this study, we confirmed that GA cockroaches rejected glucose, but they accepted oligosaccharides. However, whereas wild-type cockroaches that accepted glucose also satiated on oligosaccharides, GA cockroaches ceased ingesting the oligosaccharides within seconds, resulting in significantly lower consumption. We hypothesized that saliva might hydrolyze oligosaccharides, releasing glucose and terminating feeding. By mixing artificially collected cockroach saliva with various oligosaccharides, we demonstrated oligosaccharide-aversion in GA cockroaches. Acarbose, an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor, prevented the accumulation of glucose and rescued the phagostimulatory response and ingestion of oligosaccharides. Our results indicate that pre-oral and oral hydrolysis of oligosaccharides by salivary alpha-glucosidases released glucose, which was then processed by the gustatory system of GA cockroaches as a deterrent and caused the rejection of food. We suggest that the genetic mechanism of glucose-aversion support an extended aversion phenotype that includes glucose-containing oligosaccharides. Salivary digestion protects the cockroach from ingesting toxic chemicals and thus could support the rapid evolution of behavioral and physiological resistance in cockroach populations.
Keywords
Taste; Sugar-aversion; German cockroach; Glucose; Saliva; Salivary digestion; Feeding behavior; Bait; Pest control
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Anatomy and Physiology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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