An Analysis of the Athetis lepigone Transcriptome from Four Developmental Stages

Athetis lepigone Möschler (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) has recently become an important insect pest of maize (Zea mays) crops in China. In order to understand the characteristics of the different developmental stages of this pest, we used Illumina short-read sequences to perform de novo transcriptome assembly and gene expression analysis for egg, larva, pupa and adult developmental stages. We obtained 10.08 Gb of raw data from Illumina sequencing and recovered 81,356 unigenes longer than 100 bp through a de novo assembly. The total sequence length reached 49.75 Mb with 858 bp of N50 and an average unigene length of 612 bp. Annotation analysis of predicted proteins indicate that 33,736 unigenes (41.47% of total unigenes) are matches to genes in the Genbank Nr database. The unigene sequences were subjected to GO, COG and KEGG functional classification. A large number of differentially expressed genes were recovered by pairwise comparison of the four developmental stages. The most dramatic differences in gene expression were found in the transitions from one stage to another stage. Some of these differentially expressed genes are related to cuticle and wing formation as well as the growth and development. We identified more than 2,500 microsatellite markers that may be used for population studies of A.lepigone. This study lays the foundation for further research on population genetics and gene function analysis in A. lepigone.

最近，Athetis lepigone Möschler（鳞翅目：夜蛾科）已在中国玉米（Zea mays）作物中成为重要的害虫。为了解该害虫不同发育阶段的特性，我们利用Illumina短读序列进行了从头转录组组装和基因表达分析，涉及卵、幼虫、蛹和成虫等发育阶段。我们从Illumina测序中获得了10.08 Gb的原始数据，并通过从头组装恢复了81,356个长度超过100 bp的unigenes。总序列长度达到49.75 Mb，N50为858 bp，平均unigene长度为612 bp。对预测蛋白质的注释分析表明，33,736个unigenes（占总unigenes的41.47%）与Genbank Nr数据库中的基因相匹配。对unigene序列进行了GO、COG和KEGG功能分类。通过四发育阶段的成对比较，恢复了大量差异表达基因。基因表达的最显著差异出现在从一个发育阶段向另一个阶段过渡时。其中一些差异表达基因与表皮和翅膀的形成以及生长和发育有关。我们鉴定出超过2,500个微卫星标记，这些标记可用于A.lepigone的种群研究。本研究为A. lepigone的种群遗传学和基因功能分析提供了研究基础。