{"doi":"10.1101/2025.08.10.669515","title":"O-Acyltransferase Genes Involved in the Production of Volatile Sex Pheromones in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>","abstract":"Abstract Gene family expansions are critical for functional diversification, yet paralog contributions to metabolic pathways are often unclear. In Caenorhabditis , the expanded O-acyltransferase (OAC) family—enzymes that transfer acyl groups to hydroxylated substrates—remains poorly characterized despite having been implicated in lipid metabolism. Using CRISPR-Cas9 mutagenesis, behavioral assays, gas chromatographic-mass spectral (GC-MS) analyses, and metabolomics, we systematically analyzed 59 OAC-family protein-coding genes to define their roles in regulating signaling molecules. We found that four adjacent paralogs ( oac-13, oac-16, oac-25, and oac-28 ) on chromosome I are required for synthesizing volatile sex pheromones (VSPs)—airborne signals critical for male mate-searching. Specifically, oac -13 and oac-16 are necessary for producing both major pheromone components, while the identical tandem paralogs oac-25 and oac-28 regulate the production of the later-eluting component in gas chromatography. Disruption of these genes reduced production of key pheromone components and impaired male attraction. Metabolomics revealed that oac-16 and other OACs also modulate synthesis and secretion of non-volatile ascaroside pheromones, indicating dual roles in chemical signaling. This work uncovers functional specialization within an expanded gene family, illustrating how redundancy and divergence enable adaptive evolution of communication systems.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":558753,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9452,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":339572,"name":"Sarah M Cohen","orcid":"0000-0003-4469-2670","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148234,"name":"Yan Yu","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339570,"name":"Henry H. Le","orcid":"0000-0003-2942-2357","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339574,"name":"Heenam Park","orcid":"0000-0001-7911-5828","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":470989,"name":"Alessandro Groaz","orcid":"0000-0002-3873-7409","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1230014,"name":"Rachel J Moreno","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1092122,"name":"Minyi Tan","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1459966,"name":"Matthew R. Gronquist","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1459551,"name":"Ryoji Shinya","orcid":"0000-0002-2450-3054","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":72618,"name":"Frank C. Schroeder","orcid":"0000-0002-4420-0237","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":49667,"name":"Paul W. Sternberg","orcid":"0000-0002-7699-0173","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":780697,"name":"Xuan Wan","orcid":"0000-0002-6165-6340","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":61,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:55:30.312295Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}