Deroceras reticulatum Transcriptome or Gene expression

The gray garden slug, Deroceras reticulatum (Gastropoda: Pulmonata), is one of the most common terrestrial molluscs. Studies on D. reticulatum have focused on its ecology, biology, pest status and control due to severe damages on a wide range of vegetables and field crops. However, little is known about hormonal signaling and genetic sequences for neuropeptides. This study, therefore, aimed to establish the transcriptome of D. reticulatum and to identify a comprehensive repertoire of neuropeptides in this slug. Illumina high-throughput sequencing of the whole body transcriptome of D. reticulatum generated a total of 5.9 billion raw paired-end reads. De novo assembly by Trinity resulted in 143,575 transcripts and further filtration selected 120,553 unigenes. Gene Ontology (GO) terms were assigned to 30,588 unigenes, composed of biological process (36.9%), cellular component (30.2%) and molecular function (32.9%). Functional annotation by BLASTx revealed 39,987 unigenes with hits, which were further categorized into important functional groups based on sequence abundance. BLAST searches identified many putative neuropeptide precursor genes from the D. reticulatum transcriptome. Comparative analysis among different molluscan species clearly revealed that D. reticulatum neuropeptide sequences are conserved in Mollusca with some unique features distinct from others. This is the first transcriptome-wide report of neuropeptides in terrestrial slugs. Our results provide the comprehensive transcriptome data of the gray garden slug and its rich repertoire of putative neuropeptide sequences, laying a foundation of molecular approach to study the terrestrial pest slug.