Sitophilus oryzae breed:Bouriz Genome sequencing and assembly

The cereal weevil Sitophilus is among the most cereal devastators and causes huge agriculture and economic damages, particularly in developing countries. One of the strategy we are using to develop new control methods against this pest is to unravel molecular and cellular interactions between weevils and their nutritional endosymbionts. While, we have made many sequences on this model (endosymbiont whole genome, many ESTs from Sitophilus, many new libraries are being sequenced with NGS), the sequence the whole genome of Sitophilus is important for following reasons:- Sitophilus species are economical and agriculturally highly important (until 40% of cereal destruction in developing countries)- Sitophilus is an original model for studying symbiosis (recent age of endosymbiosis, efficient immune response to symbiont and pathogens,...) - New technologies have been settled on this model such as RNAi gene silencing- Sitophilus belongs to the Curculionoidea, which is the most species rich super family in insect. While the coleopteran order is the most diverse animal group (more than 50% of animal species belong to this group) only two species (Tribolium castaneum and Dendroctonus ponderosae) were sequenced so far.