Chromosomal-level reference genome of moth Heortia vitessoides (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), a pest of agarwood-producing trees

Moth <em>Heortia vitessoides</em> Moore (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is a major pest of ecological, commercial and cultural important agarwood-producing trees <em>Aquilaria sinensis</em>. Nevertheless, genomic resource of <em>H. vitessoides</em> is lacking. Here, we present a chromosomal-level assembly for <em>H. vitessoides</em>. A 517 megabase (Mb) genome assembly was obtained with high physical contiguity (scaffold N50 of 18.2 Mb) and high completeness (97.9% complete BUSCO score). 8 transcriptomes from different developmental stages were included, and a total of 16,421 gene models were predicted. Phylogenetic analysis revealed <em>H. vitessoides </em>was diverged from the non- Pyraustinae-Spilomelinae clade that emerged ~58 million years ago. Expansion of gene families that are involved in xenobiotic metabolisms and development were also detected, from which we highlighted the gene duplication of cytosolic sulfotransferase across lepidopterans for the first time. Moreover, small RNA sequencing on 5 developmental stages facilitated the identification of 85 conserved and 94 novel microRNAs in <em>H. vitessoides</em>. Together with annotations on essential hormonal pathways, neuropeptides and microRNAs, the high-quality moth <em>H. vitessoides</em> genome data will provide valuable resources to address a variety of fundamental genomic and evolutionary questions in the lepidopterans, as well as contribute to the development of technology for pest management.

沉香叶螟（Heortia vitessoides）Moore（鳞翅目：草螟科）是兼具生态、经济与文化价值的产沉香树种白木香（Aquilaria sinensis）的主要害虫。然而，该虫的基因组学资源仍较为匮乏。本研究报道了沉香叶螟的染色体级基因组组装结果：共获得总长517兆碱基（Mb）的基因组组装序列，其物理连续性优异（支架N50（scaffold N50）为18.2 Mb）且完整性极高（BUSCO（Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs）完整度为97.9%）。本研究整合了8个不同发育阶段的转录组数据，共预测得到16421个基因模型。系统发育分析表明，沉香叶螟与起源于约5800万年前的非野螟亚科-斑野螟亚科支系发生分化。研究还检测到参与外源物质代谢与生长发育的基因家族发生了扩张，并首次在鳞翅目昆虫中报道了胞质磺基转移酶（cytosolic sulfotransferase）的基因复制事件。此外，本研究对5个发育阶段的样本开展小RNA测序，共鉴定得到85个保守microRNA（miRNA）与94个新的microRNA。结合关键激素通路、神经肽及microRNA的注释信息，这套高质量的沉香叶螟基因组数据将为鳞翅目昆虫的诸多核心基因组学与进化学问题研究提供宝贵资源，同时也可为害虫防治技术的开发提供重要支撑。