Abstract
BackgroundThe brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Hemiptera, Delphacidae), is a serious insect pests of rice plants. Major means of BPH control are application of agricultural chemicals and cultivation of BPH resistant rice varieties. Nevertheless, BPH strains that are resistant to agricultural chemicals have developed, and BPH strains have appeared that are virulent against the resistant rice varieties. Expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis and related applications are useful to elucidate the mechanisms of resistance and virulence and to reveal physiological aspects of this non-model insect, with its poorly understood genetic background.ResultsMore than 37,000 high-quality ESTs, excluding sequences of mitochondrial genome, microbial genomes, and rDNA, have been produced from 18 libraries of various BPH tissues and stages. About 10,200 clusters have been made from whole EST sequences, with average EST size of 627 bp. Among the top ten most abundantly expressed genes, three are unique and show no homology in BLAST searches. The actin gene was highly expressed in BPH, especially in the thorax. Tissue-specifically expressed genes were extracted based on the expression frequency among the libraries. An EST database is available at our web site.ConclusionThe EST library will provide useful information for transcriptional analyses, proteomic analyses, and gene functional analyses of BPH. Moreover, specific genes for hemimetabolous insects will be identified. The microarray fabricated based on the EST information will be useful for finding genes related to agricultural and biological problems related to this pest.
Highlights
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Hemiptera, Delphacidae), is a serious insect pests of rice plants
The Expressed sequence tag (EST) database constructed in this study and described will be useful for the molecular studies of BPH
The EST database is useful for identifying potential target genes for developing novel insecticides against planthoppers [39]
Summary
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Hemiptera, Delphacidae), is a serious insect pests of rice plants. Major means of BPH control are application of agricultural chemicals and cultivation of BPH resistant rice varieties. The brown planthopper (BPH, Nilaparvata lugens) attacks rice plant and sucks fluid from the vascular bundle. BMC Genomics 2008, 9:117 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/9/117 stunt virus (RGSV) [1]. Attack of this pest has caused intermittent serious famines in the East Asia since ancient times; it became conspicuous in the Southeast Asia after the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s. The wing dimorphism is induced by environmental stimuli during nymphal stages These biological properties of BPH are closely related to BPH distribution, BPH reproduction, and rice plant damage
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