De novo assembly and characterization of central nervous system transcriptome reveals neurotransmitter signaling systems in the rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis

Abstract

BackgroundNeurotransmitter signaling systems play crucial roles in multiple physiological and behavioral processes in insects. Genome wide analyses of de novo transcriptome sequencing and gene specific expression profiling provide rich resources for studying neurotransmitter signaling pathways. The rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis is a destructive rice pest in China and other Asian countries. The characterization of genes involved in neurotransmitter biosynthesis and transport could identify potential targets for disruption of the neurochemical communication and for crop protection.ResultsHere we report de novo sequencing of the C. suppressalis central nervous system transcriptome, identification and expression profiles of genes putatively involved in neurotransmitter biosynthesis, packaging, and recycling/degradation. A total of 54,411 unigenes were obtained from the transcriptome analysis. Among these unigenes, we have identified 32 unigenes (31 are full length genes), which encode 21 enzymes and 11 transporters putatively associated with biogenic aminergic signaling, acetylcholinergic signaling, glutamatergic signaling and GABAergic signaling. RT-PCR and qRT-PCR results indicated that 12 enzymes were highly expressed in the central nervous system and all the transporters were expressed at significantly high levels in the central nervous system. In addition, the transcript abundances of enzymes and transporters in the central nervous system were validated by qRT-PCR. The high expression levels of these genes suggest their important roles in the central nervous system.ConclusionsOur study identified genes potentially involved in neurotransmitter biosynthesis and transport in C. suppressalis and these genes could serve as targets to interfere with neurotransmitter production. This study presents an opportunity for the development of specific and environmentally safe insecticides for pest control.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1742-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Identification and expression profiles of neuropeptides and their G protein-coupled receptors in the rice stem borer Chilo suppressalis

“…After eliminating adapters, ambiguous nucleotides and low quality sequences, 138,063,130 bp clean reads remained. The total clean base pairs yielded 105,769 transcripts and 54,411 unigenes were obtained after assembling the transcripts into unigenes 15 . We identified 43 neuropeptide precursor genes in C. suppressalis with a local BLAST search ( Table 1 ).…”

A glutamic acid decarboxylase (CgGAD) highly expressed in hemocytes of Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas

“…The remaining two candidates were found to be located on the same gene locus, and CgGAD by multiple alignment (Xu et al, 2015) (Fig.1). and Rattus norvegicus (NP_058703) were clustered into the vertebrate branch (Fig.2).…”

Molecular characterization and expression profiles of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

“…C. suppressalis nAChR subunits were identified by screening larval central nervous system transcriptome data for the rice striped stem borer, which are available in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database, under accession number SRX1022691) (Xu et al, 2015). Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) queries were performed using the amino acid sequences of nAChR subunits from the silkworm, B. mori.…”