Data from: The reference transcriptome of the adult female biting midge (Culicoides sonorensis) and differential gene expression profiling during teneral, blood, and sucrose feeding conditions

Deep sequencing technologies were used to construct the first adult female Culicoides sonorensis reference transcriptome.
Genetic and genomic tools for Culicoides biting midges are lacking, despite the fact that they vector a large number of arboviruses and other pathogens impacting humans and domestic animals world-wide. Libraries of tissue-specific transcripts expressed in response to feeding and oral virus challenge in C. sonorensis have previously been reported, but extensive genome-wide expression profiling in the midge has not. Here, we successfully used deep sequencing technologies to construct the first adult female C. sonorensis reference transcriptome, and utilized genome-wide expression profiling to elucidate the genetic response to blood and sucrose feeding over time. The adult female midge unigene consists of 19,041 genes, of which less than 7% are differentially expressed during the course of a sucrose meal, while up to 52% of the genes respond significantly in blood-fed midges, indicating hematophagy induces complex physiological processes. Many genes that were differentially expressed during blood feeding were associated with digestion (e.g. proteases, lipases), hematophagy (e.g., salivary proteins), and vitellogenesis, revealing many major metabolic and biological factors underlying these critical processes. Additionally, key genes in the vitellogenesis pathway were identified, which provides the first glimpse into the molecular basis of anautogeny for C. sonorensis. This is the first extensive transcriptome for this genus, which will serve as a framework for future expression studies and in informing a reference genome assembly and annotation. Moreover, this study will serve as a foundation for subsequent studies of genome-wide expression analyses during early virus infection and dissecting the molecular mechanisms behind vector competence in midges.
Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: CSV Data Dictionary for Tables 1-12. File Name: CulicoidesReferenceTranscriptome_DataDictionary.csvResource Description: Defines variables and criteria for the supporting transcriptome sequence data.Resource Title: File S1.. File Name: pone.0098123.s003.xlsxResource Description: Tables S1–S12. Table S1. Sample trimming results of 2×101 bp PE Illumina. Table S2. BlastX alignment of the Culicoides unigene to the NR, and Aedes and Culex transcriptomes. Table S3. Unique GO accessions of the Culicoides transcriptome mapped to the GO database. Table S4. Top 100 genes with at least 2-fold increase in abundance in early response to a blood meal. Table S5. Effect of blood feeding on differential expression of genes in female Culicoides sonorensis. Table S6. Significant differentially expressed genes between teneral and early blood-fed C. sonorensis. Table S7. Significant differentially expressed genes between teneral and late blood-fed C. sonorensis. Table S8. Significant differentially expressed genes between early and late blood-fed C. sonorensis. Table S9. Significant differentially expressed genes between teneral and early sugar-fed C. sonorensis. Table S10. Significant differentially expressed genes between teneral and late sugar-fed C. sonorensis. Table S11. Effect of sucrose feeding on differential expression of genes in female Culicoides sonorensis. Table S12. Differential expression of putative housekeeping or reference genes in C. sonorensis. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098123.s003

深度测序技术被应用于构建首例成年雌性蜱媒蚊属（Culicoides sonorensis）参考转录组。尽管蜱媒蚊属为全球范围内的多种虫媒病毒及其他病原体提供了传播途径，从而对人类和家畜造成了重大影响，但针对该属的遗传学和基因组工具却十分匮乏。先前已报道了C. sonorensis在摄食和口腔病毒挑战下表达的特定组织转录物库，然而，对于该蚊种的广泛基因组表达分析尚未展开。本研究中，我们成功利用深度测序技术构建了首例成年雌性C. sonorensis参考转录组，并通过全基因组表达分析阐明了血食和蔗糖摄食过程中的遗传响应。成年雌性蚊种的单基因组成包含19,041个基因，其中在蔗糖摄食过程中仅有不到7%的基因表达差异，而在血食蚊种中高达52%的基因表现出显著响应，这表明吸血行为诱导了复杂的生理过程。许多在吸血过程中表达差异的基因与消化（如蛋白酶、脂肪酶）、吸血（如唾液蛋白）和卵黄生成相关，揭示了这些关键过程中许多主要的代谢和生物因素。此外，还鉴定了卵黄生成途径中的关键基因，为首次揭示了C. sonorensis的无性生殖的分子基础提供了线索。这是该属的首个广泛转录组，将为未来的表达研究以及参考基因组组装和注释提供框架。此外，本研究将为后续关于早期病毒感染过程中的全基因组表达分析以及解析蚊媒传播能力背后的分子机制的研究奠定基础。