The developmental transcriptome of Trichopria drosophilae (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) and insights into cuticular protein genes

Abstract

The pupal endoparasitoid wasp Trichopria drosophilae (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) plays an important role in biological control of many frugivorous fruit fly species including Drosophila suzukii, a well-known invasive pest. Here, we report the transcriptomes of T. drosophilae among different developmental stages. A total of 601,148,438 high-quality reads were obtained and de novo assembled into 187,704 unigenes with an average length of 1096 bp. Among them, 21,735 unigenes were annotated into 52 Gene Ontology terms and 36,898 were assigned to 25 Cluster of Orthologous Groups categories, whereas 30,585 unigenes were mapped to 270 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes different pathways. Numbers of differentially expressed genes were found through comparisons between different developmental stages. We further identified 137 cuticular protein genes (CPs) from T. drosophilae transcriptome, including 59 from CPR family, 2 from Tweedle family, 1 from CPF family, 46 from CPAP family, and 29 from other CP families. We analyzed expression patterns of the CPs at different developmental stages of T. drosophilae, and found some stage-specific CPs. Quantitative real-time PCR results confirmed RNA sequencing findings based on the relative expression levels of eight randomly selected CPs. This study provides a valuable transcriptomic resource for a comprehensive understanding of the development and physiology of T. drosophilae, and will help to improve their parasitism efficiency for biological control purposes.