Abstract
The Asian corn borer, Ostrinia furnacalis, is one of the most destructive pests of maize and causes huge losses in maize yield each year. In order to characterize the different developmental stages, a high-throughput sequencing platform was employed to perform de novo transcriptome assembly and gene expression analysis for the egg, larva, pupa and adult stages. Approximately 185 million reads were obtained, trimmed, and assembled into 42,638 unigenes with an average length of 801.94 bp and an N50 length of 1,152 bp. These unigene sequences were annotated and classified by performing Gene Ontology (GO), Cluster of Orthologous Groups (KOG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) functional classifications. Comparison of the gene expression profiles of the two transitional stages revealed dramatic differences. Some differentially expressed genes are associated with digestion, cuticularization olfactory recognition and wing formation as well as growth and development. In total, 12 putative insect development-related genes were identified. Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) results and sequencing based on relative expression levels of randomly selected genes confirmed these expression patterns. These data represent the most comprehensive transcriptomic resource currently available for O. furnacalis and will facilitate the study of developmental pathways, cuticularization, wing formation and olfactory recognition.
Highlights
Corn (Zea mays L.) is ranked first crop plants in terms of planting area and total yield[1]
The Asian corn borer (ACB) is unique within the genus Ostrinia because it has evolved to use a pheromone blend involving a shift in the position of the double bonds, resulting in E12- and Z12-tetradecenyl acetate[10,11]
To further understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the developmental changes during O. furnacalis life stages, cDNA libraries from eggs, larvae, pupae and moths were sequenced using the Illumina HiSeqTM 2000 sequencing platform
Summary
Corn (Zea mays L.) is ranked first crop plants in terms of planting area and total yield[1]. Several factors contribute to the status of O. furnacalis as a devastating pest species, including adaptation to many host crops, high fecundity, a high capacity to evolve resistance to Bt4,5 and other pesticides and the ability to synchronize its life cycle through diapause[6]. The O. furnacalis moth is a typical long-day-length species; to adapt to winter, the larvae undergo a facultative diapause and respond to short-day conditions during the autumn[9]. This insect overwinters in the form of full-grown larvae in plant stalks, and as the temperature increases in the following year, the larvae become pupae and emerge as moths. The primary aims of this study were to compare gene expression levels in different developmental stages and create a database of molecular information to identify genes related to ACB development
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