Thrips are one of the major sucking pest and vector of plant viruses causing huge economic loss in agriculture. The accurate identification of thrips is crucial for effective pest management strategies. However, morphology based identification has limitations and warrants integration of molecular data. We attempted the largest DNA barcoding initiative on 370 sequences of 89 thrips morphospecies including 104 novel sequences from 39 morphospecies, including the type specimens of four species. The results of multiple species delimitation methods (BIN, ABGD, GMYC and bPTP) were consistent for 73 species (82%) with their morphological identifications. A total of 107 molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) was recovered for 89 morphospecies by superimposing multiple methods and applying a three level nomenclature system. We detected more than one MOTU in 14 morphospecies indicating to have cryptic diversity including, two major vector species (Frankliniella schultzei and Thrips palmi). However, four morphospecies (Thrips moundi, Thrips carthami, Haplothrips andersi and Haplothrips gowdeyi) showed low genetic distances between them with overlapping in barcode gap that requires further analysis with multiple molecular markers and more specimens from wide geographical areas for better taxonomic judgment. We also presented the advantage of simultaneous use of multiple delimitation methods for detection and identification of cryptic species.

COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 16,114,449 cases with 646,641 deaths from the 217 countries, or territories as on July 27th 2020. Due to multifaceted issues and challenges in the implementation of the safety and preventive measures, inconsistent coordination between societies-governments and most importantly lack of specific vaccine to SARS-CoV-2, the spread of the virus that initially emerged at Wuhan is still uprising after taking a heavy toll on human life. In the present study, we mapped immunogenic epitopes present on the four structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and we designed a multi-epitope peptide based vaccine that, demonstrated a high immunogenic response with a vast application on world’s human population. On codon optimization and in-silico cloning, we found that candidate vaccine showed high expression in E. coli and immune simulation resulted in inducing a high level of both B-cell and T-cell mediated immunity. The results predicted that exposure of vaccine by administrating three injections significantly subsidized the antigen growth in the system. The proposed candidate vaccine found promising by yielding desired results and hence, should be validated by practical experimentations for its functioning and efficacy to neutralize SARS-CoV-2.

prior to this study, complete mitochondrial genomes from order thysanoptera were restricted to a single family, the thripidae, resulting in a biased view of their evolution. Here we present the sequences for the mitochondrial genomes of four additional thrips species, adding three extra families and an additional subfamily, thus greatly improving taxonomic coverage. thrips mitochondrial genomes are marked by high rates of gene rearrangement, duplications of the control region and tRnA mutations. Derived features of mitochondrial tRnAs in thrips include gene duplications, anticodon mutations, loss of secondary structures and high gene translocation rates. Duplicated control regions are found in the Aeolothripidae and the 'core' thripinae clade but do not appear to promote gene rearrangement as previously proposed. phylogenetic analysis of thrips mitochondrial sequence data supports the monophyly of two suborders, a sister-group relationship between Stenurothripidae and thripidae, and suggests a novel set of relationships between thripid genera. Ancestral state reconstructions indicate that genome rearrangements are common, with just eight gene blocks conserved between any thrips species and the ancestral insect mitochondrial genome. Conversely, 71 derived rearrangements are shared between at least two species, and 24 of these are unambiguous synapomorphies for clades identified by phylogenetic analysis. While the reconstructed sequence of genome rearrangements among the protein-coding and ribosomal RnA genes could be inferred across the phylogeny, direct inference of phylogeny from rearrangement data in MLGo resulted in a highly discordant set of relationships inconsistent with both sequence-based phylogenies and previous morphological analysis. Given the demonstrated rates of genomic evolution within thrips, extensive sampling is needed to fully understand these phenomena across the order.Complete mitochondrial genomes have been shown to be useful for phylogenetic and evolutionary studies at various taxonomic scales, as they provide more phylogenetic information than individual genes alone 1-4 . The mitochondrial genome of metazoans is typically a circular molecule 14-19 kilobases (kb) in length, that contains a conserved set of 37 genes: 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), ATPase subunits 6 and 8 (atp6 and atp8), Cytochrome oxidase subunits 1 to 3 (cox1-cox3), cytochrome b (cob), NADH dehydrogenase subunits 1-6 and 4 L (nad1-6 and nad4L); the small and large subunit rRNAs (rrnL and rrnS), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and a non-coding control region (CR) which contains initiation sites for transcription and replication 1,5 . In addition to sequence variation, metazoan mitochondrial genomes also exhibit variation in a number of features, such as length, tRNA secondary structure, gene order, and the number and internal structure of control regions 6-8 . These features can provide evidence for evolutionary relationships among taxa at high and/or low taxonomic levels beyond that provided by analysis of mitochondrial seq...

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