Transcriptome of lifestages of Acheta domesticus

In order to develop genetic resources for the improvement of insects as food, we sequenced transcripts from life stages of the house cricket, Acheta domesticus. A draft transcriptome was assembled from more than 138 million sequences obtained from embryos, one day hatchlings, three nymph stages, and male and female adults. The draft transcriptome assembly contained 46,741 contigs, and more than half (27,641) were similar to sequences at NCBI (e value 1,000) levels mostly were from adult males and one day hatchlings. There were 80 differentially expressed genes common to all life stages (significant at 99.99% C.I.), with some increased during early development, and others expressed at higher levels in later stages. An enrichment analysis of gene ontology terms from each life stage or sex demonstrated genes that were important to biological processes in cricket development. We characterized transcripts that may be important in future studies of genetically modified crickets for improved food production, including those involved in RNA interference, and those encoding prolixin and hexamerin 1. The data represent an important first step in our efforts to provide genetically improved crickets for human consumption and livestock feed.

为培育昆虫作为食品的遗传资源，本研究对家蟋蟀 Acheta domesticus 的生命阶段进行了转录组测序。从胚胎、孵化后一天、三个若虫阶段以及雄性和雌性成虫中获得了超过一亿三八千万条序列，从而构建了一个转录组草图。该草图包含 46,741 条连续片段，其中超过一半（27,641 条）与 NCBI 数据库中的序列相似（相似度阈值 e 值为 1,000），主要来自成年雄性和孵化后一天的个体。存在 80 个在所有生命阶段均差异表达的基因（置信区间显著度为 99.99%），其中一些在早期发育过程中表达增加，而另一些则在后续阶段以更高水平表达。对每个生命阶段或性别的基因本体术语进行富集分析，揭示了在蟋蟀发育过程中具有重要生物过程意义的基因。本研究还鉴定了可能在未来研究中对改良蟋蟀食品生产具有重要意义的转录本，包括参与 RNA 干扰的转录本，以及编码神经肽和六聚素 1 的转录本。这些数据代表了我们为提供遗传改良蟋蟀以供人类食用和家畜饲料而做出的重要第一步。