Spodoptera littoralis: de novo assembly of the transcriptome, a comparative study. Spodoptera littoralis

The African cotton leafworm or the Egyptian cotton leafworm (Sporoptera littoralis, Boisduval 1833) belongs to the Noctuide family (Lepidoptera) and is widely distributed in the Mediterranean Europe, Middle East and Africa. Moreover the African cotton leafworm is one of the most commonly intercepted species in Europe on imported ornamentals, found but not yet established in countries of Central, Western and Northern Europe, e.g. Poland, Czech Republic, France, Germany Denmark and Finland. It is highly polyphagous defoliator of many plants (representing over 40 families) of cultivated fields and greenhouses. Effectiveness of different insecticides was evaluated against the African cotton leafworm, however there is little data about their metabolism and detoxification in this species. The presence of biological oscillators in organs participating in the metabolism and detoxification of insecticides (gut, fat body and Malpighian tubules) is probably a common, albeit poorly characterized, feature of insects. The aim of bioinformatic analysis was comparison of transcriptional activity between probes from different organs in order to type the differentially expressed genes which could be involved in the xenobiotics metabolism in certain time of the day.