Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals host-associated differentiation in Chilo suppressalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

Abstract

The striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis Walker (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is one of the most serious rice pests. Besides attacking rice, it also feeds on an economically important vegetable crop, water-oat Zizania latifolia. The species feeding on water-oat has higher growth and survival rate than those on rice, suggesting their success in adaptation to the new host plant. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of host plant adaptation. Here we investigated the midgut transcriptome responses of C. suppressalis larvae reared on rice and water-oat. A total of 1,633 differentially expressed genes were identified, with a greater number up-regulated on the more delicious new host. The up-regulation of most digestive and detoxification-related genes may be the result of adaptation to the changes in nutritional requirements and toxic chemicals during host shift. In contrast, down-regulation of ribosomal genes may be related to their better development performance when feeding on the new host. In conclusion, our results suggest that transcriptional regulation of genes related to digestion, detoxification and ribosome may play an important role in adaptation of C. suppressalis to a new host plant.

Transcriptomics of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) reveals that toxic host plants alter expression of detoxification genes and down‐regulate a small number of immune genes

“…For instance, categories related to membrane, cuticle and ribosome are significantly enriched in Polygonia c‐album when feeding on different plant species (Celorio‐Mancera et al, ). Enrichment of cuticle‐related and developmental‐related genes when feeding on different host plants has also been reported in milkweed aphids (Birnbaum et al, ) and in several other herbivorous insects (Hoang et al, ; Mathers et al, ; Matzkin, ; Schweizer, Heidel‐Fischer, Vogel, & Reymond, ; Zhong, Li, Chen, Zhang, & Li, ), suggesting that those genes might have pleiotropic effects on detoxification processes, or might be important for structuring of gut tissues. Thickening cuticular components has been suggested to reduce the penetration of insecticides, facilitating insecticide resistance (Foster et al, ).…”

Comparative gut transcriptome analysis of Diatraea saccharalis in response to the dietary source

“…The gut is the first defence barrier against pathogens and toxins acquired through food [2,62]. Well-characterized families of enzymes that play crucial roles in detox pathways, such as GST, UGT, and CYP proteins and peroxidases, were identified as DEGs here and in previous studies on Lepidoptera [9,12,46,61,63,64]. Most of these gene families have variable expression profiles; some transcripts are overexpressed in sugarcane-fed larvae and others overexpressed in artificial diet-fed larvae, probably due to the high structural and functional diversity of these families (Fig 5).…”

“…saccharalis . Tissue-specific transcriptomes of other lepidopterans have shown that despite the high variability in contig numbers, the number of protein-coding unigenes is consistently between 20,000 and 30,000 [ 9 , 12 , 46 – 48 ]. Insect transcriptomes have been sequenced at higher frequency in the last five years, proving to be useful as a descriptive tool and an invaluable source of sequences for studies researching gene function and design of RNAi experiments [ 2 , 10 , 13 , 49 , 50 ].…”

“…As suggested in recent publications [ 12 , 46 ], increasing expression of GST and CYP coding genes could be one of the initial steps in specialist adaptation to different diets. The transition to new food sources is challenging for specialists because their tolerance to high doses of non-specific toxic compounds is deficient [ 5 ].…”

“…High-throughput technologies for obtaining genomic and transcriptomic data are becoming more accessible, allowing the identification of potential pest management targets. High-quality transcriptomes are powerful tools for designing pest management strategies and are required for biotechnological approaches [10][11][12][13][14]. Candidate receptors for Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins and target genes for gene silencing by RNA interference are some of the findings from these studies [15,16].…”