De novo assembled transcriptome of the aposematic wood tiger moth (Parasemia plantaginis)

Aposematic species advertise unpalatability through warning signals in the form of colour and shape. Most lepidopterans undergo different phenotypes throughout their life-span. Usually, a wingless larval phenotype is followed by a winged adult phenotype after metamorphosis. No further development occurs at the adult phenotype. Thus, the warning signals displayed by the adult, are produced during its previous larval phenotype. It is therefore important to investigate gene activity during early phenotypes. In this study, we report the first transcriptome assembly and annotation of wood tiger moth (Parasemia plantaginis) larvae. Through Illumina total RNA-sequencing, larval transcriptomes were de novo assembled using Trinity to produce a reference trancscriptome, which was subsequently annotated using balstx and Blast2GO. This transcriptome may serve as a valuable genomic resource for studying gene activity during development, and its relation to warning signal display at the adult phenotype.