Abstract
A high-quality genome is of significant value when seeking to control forest pests such as Dendrolimus kikuchii, a destructive member of the order Lepidoptera that is widespread in China. Herein, a high quality, chromosome-level reference genome for D. kikuchii based on Nanopore, Pacbio HiFi sequencing and the Hi-C capture system is presented. Overall, a final genome assembly of 705.51 Mb with contig and scaffold N50 values of 20.89 and 24.73 Mb, respectively, was obtained. Of these contigs, 95.89% had unique locations on 29 chromosomes. In silico analysis revealed that the genome contained 15,323 protein-coding genes and 63.44% repetitive sequences. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that D. kikuchii may diverged from the common ancestor of Thaumetopoea. Pityocampa, Thaumetopoea ni, Heliothis virescens, Hyphantria armigera, Spodoptera frugiperda, and Spodoptera litura approximately 122.05 million years ago. Many gene families were expanded in the D. kikuchii genome, particularly those of the Toll and IMD signaling pathway, which included 10 genes in peptidoglycan recognition protein, 19 genes in MODSP, and 11 genes in Toll. The findings from this study will help to elucidate the mechanisms involved in protection of D. kikuchii against foreign substances and pathogens, and may highlight a potential channel to control this pest.
Highlights
Dendrolimus kikuchii (Matsumura, 1927), a member of the genus Dendrolimus (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), is an economically significant pest of coniferous forests in southern China (Kong et al, 2007) (Figures 1A, B)
Previous studies have shown that local epidemics of pine caterpillar disease in humans have been accompanied by an outbreak of D. kikuchii larvae, and that direct contact with either living or dead caterpillars, or their pupae, will cause a poisoning reaction known as caterpillar arthritis, which has serious consequences for human health (Chen, 1990; Xiao, 1992; Wang et al, 1999)
For long-read sequencing, the genome of an adult female D. kikuchii was sequenced on an Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) PromethION platform and 3,336,618 reads were obtained from 64.01 Gb of clean data with N50 and average length of long sub-reads of 29.86 and 19.18 kb, respectively (Supplementary Table S1, Table 1)
Summary
Dendrolimus kikuchii (Matsumura, 1927), a member of the genus Dendrolimus (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), is an economically significant pest of coniferous forests in southern China (Kong et al, 2007) (Figures 1A, B). The large infestations of D. kikuchii larvae harm the growth rate of pines, causing heavy defoliation, dieback, and even tree death, and thereby reducing the yield of cones, timber, and resin (Hou, 1987; Dai et al, 2012; Men et al, 2017). Previous studies have shown that local epidemics of pine caterpillar disease in humans have been accompanied by an outbreak of D. kikuchii larvae, and that direct contact with either living or dead caterpillars, or their pupae, will cause a poisoning reaction known as caterpillar arthritis, which has serious consequences for human health (Chen, 1990; Xiao, 1992; Wang et al, 1999)
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