Deep sequencing of New World screw-worm transcripts to discover genes involved in insecticide resistance

The New World screw-worm (NWS), Cochliomyia hominivorax, is one of the most important myiasis-causing flies, causing severe losses to the livestock industry. In its current geographical distribution, this species has been controlled by the application of insecticides, mainly organophosphate compounds, but a number of lineages have been identified that are resistant to such chemicals. Despite its economic importance, only limited genetic information is available for the NWS. As a part of an effort to characterize C. hominivorax genome and indentify putative genes involved in insecticide resistance, we sampled its transcriptome by deep sequencing of polyadenilated transcripts using the 454 sequencing technology. Deep sequencing on the 454 platform of three normalized libraries (larvae, male adult and female adult) generated a total of 548,940 reads. We provided the largest database of NWS transcripts that is an important resource, not only further studies on the molecular basis of the OP resistance in NWS fly, but also for functional and comparative studies among Calliphoridae flies.