New insights into the reproductive transcriptome profile of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata

Purpose: Use of RNAseq to identify crucial genes expressed in the reproductive tract of C. capitata The medfly, Ceratitis capitata continues to pose a major threat to the agricultural sector in almost every continent. Promiscuous female medflies can oviposit up to 1000 eggs throughout their lifetime causing remarkable losses in crop viability. Nowadays, there is an increasing demand for finding new improved solutions to counteract its invasive spreading capacity. To these regards, research that aims in understanding the reproductive biology of fruit fly pests by obtaining its genomic profiling can be of great contribution to this field. In this study we have generated a De-novo assembly of the medfly reproductive tract transcripts. We used Transcriptomics via deep RNA-sequencing to identify the transcripts present in the sex organs (spermatheca, uterus and accessory glands) of sexually matured virgin and 24hr-freshly mated females as well as testes, and male accessory glands of C. capitata. In addition, differential expression changes between virgin and mated females could help elucidate crucial candidate genes that participate in the female physiological response to the male seminal input. Furthermore, in order to ensure pure and significant results of the transcriptomic analysis, we have included a negative control that includes gut and abdominal adipose tissue. The newly annotated genes from this investigation could furthermore contribute to the ongoing field of biological and genetic population control. Overall design: Sexually matured adult wildtype medflies of the following conditions/time points: control: virgin female gastrointestinal tract control 100bp paired end reads control: virgin female gastrointestinal tract control 50bp single read triplicates treatment: Female Lower Reproductive tract from virgin-adult (1 day after pupa emersion) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Female Lower Reproductive tract from virgin-adult (4 days after pupa emersion) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Male Reproductive tract from virgin-adult (1 day after pupa emersion) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Male Reproductive tract from virgin-adult (4 days after pupa emersion) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Female Lower Reproductive from mated-adult (1 day after mating) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Female Lower Reproductive from mated-adult (4 days after mating) 100bp paired end reads treatment: Male Lower Reproductive tract from mated-adult (1 day after mating) 100 bp paired end reads treatment: Male Lower Reproductive tract from mated-adult (4 days after mating) 100 bp paired end reads treatment: Female Lower Reproductive tract from virgin-adult (4 days after pupa emersion) 50bp single reads triplicates treatment: Female Lower Reproductive tract from mated-adult (1 day after mating) 50bp single reads triplicates treatment: Male reproductive tract from mated-adult (1 day after mating) 50bp single reads triplicates Total: 2 controls, 8 treatments, 21 sequencing runs The first 9 samples of 100bp PE reads were used for the assembly and the rest of the samples (12 samples 50 bp SE) for differential expression analysis.