Interaction of semiochemicals with model lipid membranes: A biophysical approach

Abstract

Unravelling the chemical language of insects has been the subject of intense research in the field of chemical ecology for the past five decades. Insect communication is mainly based on chemosensation due to the small body size of insects, which limits their ability to produce or perceive auditory and visual signals, especially over large distances. Chemicals involved in insect communication are called semiochemicals. These volatiles and semivolatiles compounds allow to Insects to find a mate, besides the oviposition site in reproduction and food sources. Actually, insect olfaction mechanism is subject to study, but systematic analyses of the role of neural membranes are scarce. In the present work we evaluated the interactions of α-pinene, benzaldehyde, eugenol, and grandlure, among others, with a lipid membrane model using surface pressure experiments and Monte Carlo computational analysis. This allowed us to propose a plausible membranotropic mechanism of interaction between semiochemicals and insect neural membrane.