Gene Expression Profiling Indicated Diverse Functions and Characteristics of Core Genes in Pea Aphid.

Ruizheng Tian,Yixiao Huang,Balachandar Balakrishnan,Maohua Chen

doi:10.3390/insects11030186

Ruizheng Tian, Yixiao Huang + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11030186

Copy DOI

Abstract

The pea aphid is a global insect pest, and variable phenotypes can be produced by pea aphids in the same genotype in response to changes in external environmental factors. However, detailed dynamic gene regulation networks and the core markers involved in different biological processes of pea aphids have not yet been reported. In this study, we obtained the published genomic and transcriptomic data, and performed transcriptome profiling of five pea aphid morphs (winged asexual female, wingless asexual female, wingless sexual female, winged male and wingless male) from each of three pea aphid genotypes, i.e., the transcriptomes from a total of 15 types of pea aphids were analyzed and the type-specific expression of genes in five different morphs was identified. The expression profiling was verified by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) analysis. Moreover, we determined the expression features and co-expression networks of highly variable genes. We also used the ARACNe method to obtain 263 core genes related to different biological pathways. Additionally, eight of the identified genes were aligned with transcription factor families, indicating that they act as transcription factors and regulate downstream genes. Furthermore, we found reliable markers using random forest methodology to distinguish different morphs of pea aphids. Our study provides a systematic and comprehensive approach for analyzing the core genes that may play important roles in a multitude of biological processes from the insect transcriptomes.

Highlights

The pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, which depresses crop production and acts as a vector of various plant viruses, is a serious insect pest of multiple plants [1,2]
To investigate the gene expression patterns in the 15 types of pea aphids, we identified 25,585 expressed genes with the FPKM (Fragments Per Kilobase per Million cutoff) > 0.5
We identified possible transcription factor of these 263 core genes, and found eight transcription factor which belonged to the HTH, THAP, zf-H2C2_2, and CSRNP_N transcription factor families (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

The pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, which depresses crop production and acts as a vector of various plant viruses, is a serious insect pest of multiple plants [1,2]. It has a complex life history, reproductive patterns and highly plastic phenotypes [3]. Parthenogenetic female aphids can produce winged or wingless offspring under different environmental conditions [7] Studying these environment-related polyphenisms can lead to finding important genes related to environmental stress, which is of great significance for entomological research [5]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion