De Novo Assembly of the Asian Citrus Psyllid Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) Transcriptome across Developmental Stages

Abstract

Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri Kuwayama is an important economic pest of citrus, as it transmits Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, the causative agent of huanglongbing. In this study, we used RNA-seq to identify novel genes and provide the first high-resolution view of the of D. citri transcriptome throughout development. The transcriptomes of D. citri during eight developmental stages, including the egg, five instars, and male and female adults were sequenced. In total, 115 million clean reads were obtained and assembled into 354,726 unigenes with an average length of 925.65 bp and an N50 length of 1733 bp. Clusters of Orthologous Groups, Gene Ontology, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses were conducted to functionally annotate the genes. Differential expression analysis highlighted developmental stage-specific expression patterns. Furthermore, two trehalase genes were characterized with lower expression in adults compared to that in the other stages. The RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated suppression of the two trehalase genes resulted in significantly high D. citri mortality. This study enriched the genomic information regarding D. citri. Importantly, these data represent the most comprehensive transcriptomic resource currently available for D. citri and will facilitate functional genomics studies of this notorious pest.

A Combinatorial Single-Molecule Real-Time and Illumina Sequencing Analysis of Postembryonic Gene Expression in the Asian Citrus Psyllid Diaphorina citri

“…The average consensus isoform read lengths were 2559 bp and 1778 bp from nymphs and adults, respectively. In previous research, Yang et al identified 354,726 unigenes with an average length of 925.65 bp across different D. citri developmental stages, indicating that SMRT sequencing was superior to Illumina with respect to length [ 16 ]. In recent years, the rapid development of genome sequencing technology has promoted the in-depth understanding of vector biology.…”

“…Additionally, the most full-length sequence annotations were recorded in Pfam (71.14%) and KOG (64.34%), followed by Swiss-Prot annotation (57.10%). Compared with the previous Illumina transcriptome sequencing, the annotation rate of the transcripts is significantly improved [ 16 ]. LncRNAs are a kind of non-protein-coding RNA molecule with transcript lengths longer than 200 nucleotides and can engage in various biological processes via epigenetic, transcriptional, and post-transcriptional regulation [ 35 ].…”

“…In cellular processes, a total of 38 and 31 DEGs were involved in the peroxisome and lysosome, respectively. In environmental information processing, 22 DEGs were involved in the Hippo signaling pathway, followed by the Wnt signaling pathway (18) and the Hedgehog signaling pathway (16). In genetic information processing, 18 and 14 DEGs were involved in protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, respectively.…”

“…In recent years, transcriptome sequencing has been widely used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in D. citri . Yang et al used RNA-seq to identify novel genes and provide a high-resolution view of the D. citri transcriptome throughout development [ 16 ]. Additionally, transcriptome sequencing was utilized to screen the response of key genes to C Las infection, insecticide resistance, and heat shock [ 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

Transcriptome analysis of the response to low temperature acclimation in Calliptamus italicus eggs

“…Dunning et al [16] studied the transcriptome of micrarchus alpine and lowland population and found that temperature is an important factor driving the evolution of micrarchus species. In addition, transcriptome is also commonly used to identify RNA interference targets and provide strategies for functional verification and pest control [17][18][19].…”