Abstract
BackgroundThe white backed planthopper (WBPH), Sogatella furcifera (Horváth), causes great damage to many crops by direct feeding or transmitting plant viruses. Southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus (SRBSDV), transmitted by WBPH, has become a great threat to rice production in East Asia.Methodology/Principal FindingsBy de novo transcriptome assembling and massive parallel pyrosequencing, we constructed two transcriptomes of WBPH and profiled the alternation of gene expression in response to SRBSDV infection in transcriptional level. Over 25 million reads of high-quality DNA sequences and 81388 different unigenes were generated using Illumina technology from both viruliferous and non-viruliferous WBPH. WBPH has a very similar gene ontological distribution to other two closely related rice planthoppers, Nilaparvata lugens and Laodelphax striatellus. 7291 microsatellite loci were also predicted which could be useful for further evolutionary analysis. Furthermore, comparative analysis of the two transcriptomes generated from viruliferous and non-viruliferous WBPH provided a list of candidate transcripts that potentially were elicited as a response to viral infection. Pathway analyses of a subset of these transcripts indicated that SRBSDV infection may perturb primary metabolism and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathways. In addition, 5.5% (181 out of 3315) of the genes in cell cytoskeleton organization pathway showed obvious changes. Our data also demonstrated that SRBSDV infection activated the immunity regulatory systems of WBPH, such as RNA interference, autophagy and antimicrobial peptide production.Conclusions/SignificanceWe employed massively parallel pyrosequencing to collect ESTs from viruliferous and non-viruliferous samples of WBPH. 81388 different unigenes have been obtained. We for the first time described the direct effects of a Reoviridae family plant virus on global gene expression profiles of its insect vector using high-throughput sequencing. Our study will provide a road map for future investigations of the fascinating interactions between Reoviridae viruses and their insect vectors, and provide new strategies for crop protection.
Highlights
Rice viral diseases are major threats to rice production and have been distributed worldwide across regions depending on rice cultivation [1]
We for the first time described the direct effects of a Reoviridae family plant virus on global gene expression profiles of its insect vector using high-throughput sequencing
Amino acid metabolism, and biosynthesis of ribosomes, spliceosomes and aminoacyl-tRNAs (Table 2 and Figure 9). These results suggest that protein synthesis and amino acid metabolism of viruliferous white backed planthopper (WBPH) were inhibited by Southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus (SRBSDV) infection, which are consistent with previous reports in wasps (Campoletis sonorensis) and whiteflies [17,24]
Summary
Rice viral diseases are major threats to rice production and have been distributed worldwide across regions depending on rice cultivation [1]. The most prevalent rice viruses are plant-infecting reoviruses in the genera Phytoreovirus, Fijivirus and Oryzavirus of the family Reoviridae. Southern rice black streak dwarf virus (SRBSDV), commonly known as Rice black-streaked dwarf virus 2 (RBSDV 2), is a novel member of the Fijivirus [2]. When infected with SRBSDV, rice often develops stunted stems, dark green, twisted leaves, and white waxy swellings along veins on the abaxial surface of the leaves. When infected in seedling stage, rice shows more severe stunting and occasionally dried necrotic leaves. The white backed planthopper (WBPH), Sogatella furcifera (Horvath), causes great damage to many crops by direct feeding or transmitting plant viruses. Southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus (SRBSDV), transmitted by WBPH, has become a great threat to rice production in East Asia
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