The Developmental Transcriptome of Bagworm, Metisa plana (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) and Insights into Chitin Biosynthesis Genes

Abstract

Bagworm, Metisa plana (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) is a ubiquitous insect pest in the oil palm plantations. M. plana infestation could reduce the oil palm productivity by 40% if it remains untreated over two consecutive years. Despite the urgency to tackle this issue, the genome and transcriptome of M. plana have not yet been fully elucidated. Here, we report a comprehensive transcriptome dataset from four different developmental stages of M. plana, comprising of egg, third instar larva, pupa and female adult. The de novo transcriptome assembly of the raw data had produced a total of 193,686 transcripts, which were then annotated against UniProt, NCBI non-redundant (NR) database, Gene Ontology, Cluster of Orthologous Group, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes databases. From this, 46,534 transcripts were annotated and mapped to 146 known metabolic or signalling KEGG pathways. The paper further identified 41 differentially expressed transcripts encoding seven genes in the chitin biosynthesis pathways, and their expressions across each developmental stage were further analysed. The genetic diversity of M. plana was profiled whereby there were 21,516 microsatellite sequences and 379,895 SNPs loci found in the transcriptome of M. plana. These datasets add valuable transcriptomic resources for further study of developmental gene expression, transcriptional regulations and functional gene activities involved in the development of M. plana. Identification of regulatory genes in the chitin biosynthesis pathway may also help in developing an RNAi-mediated pest control management by targeting certain pathways, and functional studies of the genes in M. plana.

Next-Generation Sequencing Analysis of the Tineola bisselliella Larval Gut Transcriptome Reveals Candidate Enzymes for Keratin Digestion

“…The overall contig number was similar to values reported in other lepidopteran transcriptome studies, such as Pieris rapae [53] and Plutella xylostella [54]. We identified ORFs for~22% of the contigs, which is comparable to the proportion assigned in other studies [55][56][57], although some authors have reported higher annotation rates [58]. In this context, we note that~25% of the assembled contigs were too short for ORF prediction (≤300 bp), probably including small and non-coding RNAs and rRNA fragments left over from rRNA depletion.…”

“…The near completeness of the T. bisselliella assembled transcriptome was predicted based on the very high proportion of assembled reads (98.67%) and BUSCO analysis using the endopterygota and insecta datasets. The website hosting the Trinity assembly tool recommends that assemblies should be represented by at least 80% of the reads [59], and our BUSCO completeness (97.4% for the endopterygota database) was comparable to [58,60] or even higher than [61] the values reported for other lepidopteran transcriptome assemblies.…”

Transcriptome Analysis of Hormone-and Cuticle-Related Genes in the Development Process of Deutonymph in Tetranychus urticae

“…The development process was regulated by multiple biological pathways such as RNA transport, insect hormone biosynthesis, and other in different insect species. In recent years, developmental transcriptome analysis in many insect species have been reported [19][20][21]. For the spider mites, they could quickly finish one lifecycle, which is shorter than insects.…”

OIL PALM ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN MALAYSIA AND R&D PROGRESS IN 2020

“…are in fact crucial. A more innovative approach in pest control is explored by a group of researchers that investigated the transcriptome dataset from four different developmental stages of Metisa plana (Rahmat et al, 2020). The study found seven regulatory genes in chitin biosynthesis; an important biosynthesis pathway across each development stage of the pest.…”

“…Palm puree derived from oil palm mesocarp is abundant with phytonutrients such as vitamin E (in the form of tocopherols and tocotrienol homologues), carotenoids, phenolics, squalene, polyphenols and flavonoids, and thus, requires confirmative measure for human consumption. Based on this understanding, Zainal et al (2020) performed a systematic acute and sub-chronic toxicity assessment and discovered that palm puree did not exhibit any signs of substantial toxicity or mortality. Driven by the growing evidence on the prospect of oil palm phenolic (OPP), many studies have been undertaken to gauge its bioactivity on health benefits.…”