Identification of germline transcriptional regulatory elements in Aedes aegypti

BackgroundSynthetic biology approaches are promising new strategies for control of pest insects that transmit disease and cause agricultural damage. These strategies require characterised modular components that can direct appropriate expression of effector sequences, with components conserved across species being particularly useful. The goal of this study was to identify genes from which new potential components could be derived for manipulation of the male germline in two major pest species, the mosquito Aedes aegypti and the tephritid fruit fly Ceratitis capitata.ResultsUsing RNA-seq data from staged testis samples, we identified several candidate genes with testis-specific expression and suitable expression timing for use of their regulatory regions in synthetic control constructs. We also developed a novel computational pipeline to identify candidate genes with testis-specific splicing from this data; use of alternative splicing is another method for restricting expression in synthetic systems. Some of the genes identified display testis-specific expression or splicing that is conserved across species; these are particularly promising candidates for construct development.ConclusionsIn this study we have identified a set of genes with testis-specific expression or splicing. In addition to their interest from a basic biology perspective, these findings provide a basis from which to develop synthetic systems to control important pest insects via manipulation of the male germline.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3280-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…Our findings complement those of Akbari et al [38], who identified regulatory regions specific to the female germline in Ae. aegypti .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…gambiae failed to drive expression in Ae. aegypti [38]. However, there are many cases of successful inter-species function of regulatory elements for driving targeted transgene expression in insect control systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of genes for engineering the male germline of Aedes aegypti and Ceratitis capitata

Sutton

Shimeld

et al. 2016

BMC Genomics

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“…aegypti analyzed and provided insight into the complexity of the basic biology of these mosquitoes (Akbari et al 2013a;Matthews et al 2018). This enormous dataset has provided the community with a foundation of data enabling the functional characterization of novel germline promoters (Akbari et al 2014b) which have subsequently been used to develop highly potent Cas9 endonuclease expressing strains Akbari et al 2014b) in addition to gene drives (Li et al 2019). While diapause has been studied extensively for Ae.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Developmental Transcriptome ofAe. albopictus,a Major Worldwide Human Disease Vector

Gamez¹,

Antoshechkin

Méndez‐Sánchez

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are important vectors for a number of human pathogens including the Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses. Capable of displacing Aedes aegypti populations, it adapts to cooler environments which increases its geographical range and transmission potential. There are limited control strategies for Aedes albopictus mosquitoes which is likely attributed to the lack of comprehensive biological studies on this emerging vector. To fill this void, here using RNAseq we characterized Aedes albopictus mRNA expression profiles at 47 distinct time points throughout development providing the first high-resolution comprehensive view of the developmental transcriptome of this worldwide human disease vector. This enabled us to identify several patterns of shared gene expression among tissues as well as sex-specific expression patterns. Moreover, to illuminate the similarities and differences between Aedes aegypti, a related human disease vector, we performed a comparative analysis using the two developmental transcriptomes. We identify life stages were the two species exhibited significant differential expression among orthologs. These findings provide insights into the similarities and differences between Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquito biology. In summary, the results generated from this study should form the basis for future investigations on the biology of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes and provide a goldmine resource for the development of transgene-based vector control strategies.

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“…Tissue-specific promoters include those from the mosquito midgut-specific, blood-meal induced gene, carboxypeptidase [10], the adult female mosquito-specific salivary gland-specific genes, anopheline antiplatelet protein [26] and 30K b [27],the female mosquito fat body-specific, blood-meal induced gene, vitellogenin [28][29][30], the testis-specific betatubulin gene [31], and the maternal or early embryonically expressed genes nanos and vasa [30,[32][33][34][35].…”

Section: Technologies For Regulating Gene Expressionmentioning

confidence: 99%