Abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous small non-coding RNAs that regulate various biological processes including sexual dimorphism. The oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis is one of the most destructive agricultural insect pests in many Asian countries. However, no miRNAs have been identified from the separate sex and gonads to elucidate sex gonad differentiation in B. dorsalis. In this study, we constructed four small RNA libraries from whole body of females, males (except ovaries and testes) and ovaries, testes of B. dorsalis for deep sequencing. The data analysis revealed 183 known and 120 novel miRNAs from these libraries. 18 female-biased and 16 male-biased miRNAs that may be involved in sexual differentiation were found by comparing the miRNA expression profiles in the four libraries. Using a bioinformatic approach, we predicted doublesex (dsx) as a target gene of the female-biased miR-989-3p which is considered as the key switch gene in the sex determination of tephritid insects. This study reveals the first miRNA profile related to the sex differentiation and gives a first insight into sex differences in miRNA expression of B. dorsalis which could facilitate studies of the reproductive organ specific roles of miRNAs.
Highlights
Sexual dimorphism is prevalent in insects, and it is thought that, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulators have an impact in this biological process [1,2]
MicroRNAs are a class of approximately 22 nucleotide endogenous non-coding small RNAs generated by Dicer enzymes processing of hairpin precursors that are involved in regulation gene expression at the posttranscriptional level [1,6,7,8]
To identify the sex-biased miRNAs in B. dorsalis, four small RNA libraries from the mature females, males and ovaries, testes were constructed by using Illumina Solexa high-throughput sequencing technology
Summary
Sexual dimorphism is prevalent in insects, and it is thought that, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulators have an impact in this biological process [1,2]. The regulation of sexbiased genes expression between males and females through several classes of small RNAs play important role in the sexual differentiation [3,4,5]. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of approximately 22 nucleotide (nt) endogenous non-coding small RNAs generated by Dicer enzymes processing of hairpin precursors that are involved in regulation gene expression at the posttranscriptional level [1,6,7,8]. Mature miRNAs are loaded with an Argonaute protein to repress mRNA transcript or protein translation by binding to the 3’ UTR region of the target gene with imperfect complementarity [7]. The seed region (bases 2–8 from the 5’ end), which is the most highly conserved sequences of the miRNA contributes significantly to miRNA-
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