Abstract
Butterflies are exceptionally diverse but their potential as an experimental system has been limited by the difficulty of deciphering heterozygous genomes and a lack of genetic manipulation technology. Here we use a hybrid assembly approach to construct high-quality reference genomes for Papilio xuthus (contig and scaffold N50: 492 kb, 3.4 Mb) and Papilio machaon (contig and scaffold N50: 81 kb, 1.15 Mb), highly heterozygous species that differ in host plant affiliations, and adult and larval colour patterns. Integrating comparative genomics and analyses of gene expression yields multiple insights into butterfly evolution, including potential roles of specific genes in recent diversification. To functionally test gene function, we develop an efficient (up to 92.5%) CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing method that yields obvious phenotypes with three genes, Abdominal-B, ebony and frizzled. Our results provide valuable genomic and technological resources for butterflies and unlock their potential as a genetic model system.
Highlights
Butterflies are exceptionally diverse but their potential as an experimental system has been limited by the difficulty of deciphering heterozygous genomes and a lack of genetic manipulation technology
P. xuthus and P. machaon differ in many aspects of their biology, including adult and larval colour pattern, larval host plants and geographic distribution, with P. xuthus mainly distributed in East Asia and P. machaon widely distributed across Asia, Europe and North America
We develop an efficient and widely applicable clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas[9] gene editing method that results in obvious phenotypes with three genes, Abdominal-B (Abd-B), ebony and frizzled
Summary
Butterflies are exceptionally diverse but their potential as an experimental system has been limited by the difficulty of deciphering heterozygous genomes and a lack of genetic manipulation technology. We use a hybrid assembly approach to construct high-quality reference genomes for Papilio xuthus (contig and scaffold N50: 492 kb, 3.4 Mb) and Papilio machaon (contig and scaffold N50: 81 kb, 1.15 Mb), highly heterozygous species that differ in host plant affiliations, and adult and larval colour patterns. Butterflies are diverse in virtually all aspects of their biology, ranging from behaviour and biogeography to cellular biology and biochemistry, with decades of study having placed much of this variation in a well-resolved ecological context[4] These features make butterflies a promising system to explore the genetics, evolution and development of morphological diversification and speciation[5,6]. Our results provide valuable genomic and technological resources for butterflies and unlock their potential as a genetic model system
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