Abstract
Phenacoccus solenopsis is one of the major polyphagous crop pests in India. Inadequate genomic or transcriptomic resources have limited the molecular studies in this insect despite its huge economic importance. The existing molecular sequence resources of this insect were supplemented through RNA sequencing, de novo transcriptome assembly and analysis, which generated 12, 925 CDS from 23,643 contigs with an average size of 1077.5 bp per CDS and 85.1% positive BLAST hits with NCBI Non redundant (nr) database. Twenty three genes involved in RNAi machinery identified through BLASTx search against NCBI nr database suggested the existence of robust RNAi in mealybug. RNAi in P. solenopsis was demonstrated through knockdown of IAP (Inhibitor of Apoptosis), AQP (Aquaporin), CAL (Calcitonin), VATPase (V-type proton ATPase subunit F 1), bursicon, chitin synthase, SNF7 and α-amylase by injecting sequence specific dsRNA of respective genes in adult female. Additionally, feeding RNAi has been demonstrated in 2nd instar nymph through dsRNA uptake in plant. The knockdown of core RNAi machinery genes such as Dicer, Argonaute and Staufen significantly hampered RNAi efficiency in this insect. However, downregulation of dsRNases improved RNAi efficiency. Sequential studies for understanding RNAi in P. solenopsis using transcriptome sequences have also been reported. The present study provides a base for future research on developing RNAi as strategy for management of this pest.
Highlights
Phenacoccus solenopsis is one of the major polyphagous crop pests in India
Full-genome information is lacking for P. solenopsis, our transcriptome assembly may represent a significant proportion of the functional genes in this specie
Of the available transcriptomes of P. solenopsis discovered the presence of 55198 transcripts in second instar (SRR6782025), 55569 transcripts in adult (SRR6782023), 49193 transcripts in third instar (SRR6782022) and 64497 in the eggs (SRR6782024)
Summary
Phenacoccus solenopsis is one of the major polyphagous crop pests in India. Inadequate genomic or transcriptomic resources have limited the molecular studies in this insect despite its huge economic importance. Phenacoccus solenopsis, commonly known as solenopsis mealybug, is a polyphagous pest, which infests major food and fiber crops in India It appeared as serious pest of cotton and threatened its cultivation in 20071. Some pests have even shown capability of developing resistance against these Bt-based transgenic crops e.g.pink bollworm developing high level of resistance to cotton expressing Cry1Ac and Cry 2Ab proteins from India[4,5] In this context, focus has to be shifted towards strategies that are less liable to be overcome by insects. RNAi has emerged as a potential tool for studying functional genomics and has wide scope to develop into future insect-pest management strategies based on dsRNA sprays or transgenic plants[6,7]. The present study was carried out to generate transcriptome sequences data and explore RNAi in this insect
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