RNA-Seq Analyses of Metopolophium dirhodum Reveal the Underlying Resistance to Insecticides

Xingjiang (XJ) and Ningxia (NX) provinces are important agricultural areas in western China. Aphid is a typical phloem feeding insects which is worldwide and causing severe damage on agriculture. In present research we collected two typical Metopolophium dirhodum populations settled in various geographical and environmental conditions of the main agricultural area in these two provinces. High throughput transcriptome sequencing was then performed. The result showed there were 5,265 differently expressed genes between the populations. DEG annotation and pathway enrichment showed that there is a good part of the DEGs involved in the pathways concerned with energy metabolism, development and insecticide resistance. Further toxicology experiment proved the insecticide resistance of NX population in comparison with XJ population. Summarily, the results suggested that the transcriptome data could serve as a good resource for mining function genes in aphids, and provide clues for researching insect development, metabolism, environment adaption and drug resistances.